February 29: Snow beasts

While we haven't had a real snowfall in weeks, the woods and shaded corners of our lawns harbor snow beasts--big lumps of unmelted snow that have lingered on through these dry but still-cold days. These amorphous white blobs poise in stark contrast to the surrounding brown and grey landscape. An especially large, polar bear-ish lump of snow along the roadside seemed a natural embodiment of winter's last hold on us--almost gone, but with with a sense of foreboding in its lurking, predatory presence.

Tomorrow the prediction is for 100% chance of snow, our first "real" winter storm in at least a month. For a few days at least, these remnant patches will unify into one mass, winter expanding again over the neighborhood like a living glacier. But when temperatures rise again, melting the plowed embankments and shoveled heaps, the snow beasts will once again emerge as individual forms... before eventually melting away again back into the landscape.

Thinking glacial thoughts,

roadside snow remnant holds fast

for the coming storm.