11/23/2005. Fall trilogy II

It is completely dark when we pull up to the country house around 6 in the evening. Denis unlocks the gate in the beam of the headlights, and gives his habitual look around as he swings it open, even though he can't see much. There's just the glimmer of the moon which rose full and red about an hour ago, but which now has retreated into the arch of the sky--remote, white, and haughty. The white shutters of the house gleam vaguely within the brick walls, like eyelids blinded by moonbeams.

We pull up to the house, and its suddenly very quiet when Denis turns off the motor after the two-hour drive. The engine ticks quietly as it starts to cool in the frigid air. Denis unlocks the house, and removes the shutter from its glass. I grab the big black flashlight, a basket and a knife, and head out to the garden. Under my feet, the grass resists my tread slightly, like a soft boarbristle brush. When I look down to see the source of this strange sensation, I see thousands of tiny diamonds sparkling up at me in the beam of the flashlight. Just a bit over an hour since sunset, and already frost is in the grass. There's a thick fog in the air which feels like liquid ice pouring in under my coat, and my fingers are already tingling inside my gloves.

Cursing my gamble on the weather that led to my decision to leave part of my winter squashes outside another week, I swerve off toward the woodshed to collect the old wooden wheelbarrow. I may be tired, and it may be dark, but I'm going to have to bring them in right now. Fortunately, I know right where each fruit is, having visited them so often to check on their progress these last few weeks. I cut their stems and load them up, making several trips back and forth to the house.

I turn off the flashlight and walk with my head tipped back on the stalk of my neck, gazing at the sky. We are lucky to inhabit a spot where there is practically no ambient light, and the night skies are fabulous. Tonight, because of the bright moon, the stars are a bit less striking than usual, but brilliant nevertheless. The longer I look the more I see through the milky diffusion of the fog, until I'm seized by vertigo. I feel as that if I keep on looking, I'll fall right up into all that fathomless infinity--a sort of upside-down drowning. The big dipper hangs low and grand over the potager. Two owls hoot back forth in the dark shadow of the woods nearby, beyond the field empty of the cows that are there in summer. I stand still long enough to feel the earth turn around me, its trees, its birds, its farm animals stirring in their barns--and to feel my edges blurring into theirs.



The next morning the world is white--not with snow but with a thick hoarfrost, and with a milky white sky, and a pale sun that rises to peer through the fog as coldly as the moon. I pull on boots and coat over my pajamas and head outside. Everything is transformed by a frill of ice, most strikingly a huge spider web in a holly tree (main photo top). The huge gunnera at the bottom of the garden no longer holds its prehistoric inverted umbrellas of leaves erect. They are buckled by the cold, which has traced a white lace over their rough surfaces.



In fact, the spinier the plant, the more ornate its icy decoration. Thistles are transformed into things of beauty, and the minute, stinging hairs on the nettle leaves have attracted an intricate fretwork of sparkling white. The ice hasn't discriminated; the lowliest weed looks royal this morning.





I wander around long enough for the sun to gain more of a toehold in the sky. I hear a sound all around me--it's a symphony of tiny drips. Another half hour and the ephemeral ice will be almost gone. The edible chrysanthemum in the potager is still laid low by the cold, but the ice on its leaves and petals is coalescing into drops of water.




Ironically, the small ruby flowers of the summer Adonis
(Adonis d'été) have withstood the hard hand of frost without even a bend in their slender stems. The only sign that ice has touched them are the pearls of melted ice on the edges of their petals.




By the time Denis woke up, almost all the magic had melted. Usually a spectacular hoarfrost is a once-a-season spectacle, but the next morning, nearly identical conditions--heavy fog and freezing temperatures--had painted the entire spectacle all over again. Denis was able to witness it this time, and he poked his head--and camera--out the door to photograph this rose, its petals etched in ice. La rose givrée.

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