On Ice

We were on tinterhooks all weekend, waiting. Venturing out for a drive to the mall in the freezing rain, we'd hope the roads wouldn't ice before we got back. On Saturday, the saturated trees began to bead and then freeze, suspended on the branches by a molecule strong enough to resist gravity. The ice storm never really materialized in this part of north Texas, though our neighbors to the west might disagree. The glazed roads mirror the street lights and the cars fish tail on the ice but the world has not stood still. Not like the winter morning in Houston years ago when I awoke from a dead sleep. A hundred miniature windchimes echoed in the stillness, an eerie quiet that seemed louder than the chimes. No cars hummed along the roads, no doors slammed, no dogs barked, no sirens signaled danger. I felt raptured from the dead and followed the sound of the chimes to my window, nearly frosted over with a thousand dendrite flakes. I opened the door and let in the cold stillness, squinting my eyes against the light. The air breathed in chimes, tinkling and shimmering tiny bells of sound. It was the trees. Iced and glazed with tiny daggers they bowed their limbs in the wind, brushed their frozen nakedness against the nearest neighbor, and sang like winter fairies.

Late this morning, the world is melting and drips a slow and steady percussion. A chickadee flits to the Christmas wreath still hanging from the eaves and nestles in the cherry-red bow. I want to wait some more, in hope, to be raptured from the dead. The world has not long enough stood still.