Gray sky and green grass!
Barren oak trees looming over head
their leaves now lie on the frozen ground
in colors of burnt siena and brown.
You can touch the freezing air with your eyes, and smell its freshness passing by.
The December moon that peered out from the fog last night
awaits tossing into the air from your fingertips, unleashed from an open fist.
The crunching sound of tiny pebbles underfoot as you step outside,
lingers in the stillness of silence, beckoning a storm.
I refer to some old notes on a book I read a long time ago. The plot is vague in my mind but basically the novel, “The Trees,” by Conrad Richter was about the Luckett family that migrated to Ohio from Pennsylvania, in the late 1700’s. This was before anyone else dared to take the trip. In the first chapter, “The Vision,” the journey through an ‘illimitable expanse of darkness’ is viewed through the eyes of the female character, Sayward. A sea of solid tree tops “this lonely forest rolled on and on til its faint blue billows broke against an incredibly distant horizon.” Richter’s language and style aptly described the harsh conditions and solitude. As the family ‘bobbed in single file… the forest had swallowed them up.’ Once they found a place to build their cabin the boundary of the forest still encroached upon them on all sides. At the end of the story the protagonist reflected upon how her mother and father became so independent at such a young age, and how they left home and never saw their siblings again. This is a story that repeats itself often in modern times as people move frequently. At least today we have FaceTime, whereas in “The Trees’ they didn’t even have a clock. Time was counted by the movement of the setting sun when it was visible, and by the daily chores that constantly consumed the energy of these pioneers. I recommend you read this book if you like stories about pioneers and Early American history. Richter wrote with a poetic and descriptive prose, and with acute sensitivity to his characters and setting.
In February, Spring was in the air.
Roaring water in the brook cascaded down around the rocks forming small waterfalls.
The reassuring sound of splashing and gurgling put my mind at ease.
I felt grateful for the trails with the beautiful surrounding nature.
The gray, white, fluffy clouds
hang low in the baby blue sky.
The constant moon glows, and shines,
high overhead.
The trees bursting with buds
incline this way and that,
like a pregnant woman ready to give birth.
The bunny rabbit scurries
under the dark olive bush
wagging its white cotton tail.
The street light ignites
suddenly above,
And the sun sets in the West,
on a horizon of many reds.
The clouds
linger in the darkened sky
and the day light goes to bed.
By TiffanyCreek
In my youth, I made this calligraphy, “Dust of Snow”. My mom guided me in the process. Her love for the poetry of Robert Frost naturally influenced my choice of words. Having saved the original, she handed it over to me later in life. I cherish it for posterity. Beautiful in all its imperfection, it reminds me of who I was, and the person I grew to be today.
- Photo TiffanyCreek
There are no stars tonight
But those of memory.
Yet how much room for memory there is
In the loose girdle of soft rain.
There is even room enough
For the letters of my mother’s mother,
Elizabeth,
That have been pressed so long
Into a corner of the roof
That they are brown and soft,
And liable to melt as snow.
Over the greatness of such space
Steps must be gentle.
It is all hung by an invisible white hair.
It trembles as birch limbs webbing the air.
And I ask myself:
“Are your fingers long enough to play
Old keys that are but echoes:
Is the silence strong enough
To carry back the music to its source
and back to you again
As though to her?”
Yet I would lead my grandmother by the hand
Through much of what she would not understand:
And so I stumble. And the rain continues on the roof
With such a sound of gently pitying laughter.
On Tiffany Creek 