Freezing Rain

 

What looked like a drop of water

About to drip from the Burr Oak twig

Turns out as I touch it to be

A frozen drop of water

Which won't be dripping

Until the temperature goes up.

 

Across the yard to the west the total tops

Of the Arbor Vitae I now notice are

Filled with such frozen water drops

Giving them a sheen I've never seen before.

 

How lucky we are to be alive.

New stuff every day

Which we can't even imagine.

 

I took the dog who can't make her mind up this morning

Back outside to see the frozen rain again.

 

The Pine trees all have it too

And are a color that beggars a blue green description.

 

Nearly every twig of the bare branched Oak

Has one tiny drop at its end.

 

What a design to delight my heart.

 

I was not so happy the first time I knew freezing rain

Decades ago in December on Hiway 95

In an old Ford u-haul truck, a hysterical wife

And a six-month old baby strapped on the seat between us

Sliding towards Sandpoint.

 

I may camp out in the backyard this morning to watch

This water change phases.

 

In the front yard the drops resemble ear studs

On the pendulous rhododendron petals.