The Night My World Changed

The transformation is total. Ice has radically altered the form of all we knew in nature. Fragile crystal, perfectly shaped as fruit trees, now rests regally on forest beds of strewn diamonds.

On wire fences laden and laced, white shimmering webs lure the eye to millions of intricate patterns. Each twig, blade of grass and bush radiates and amplifies the hazy sunlight. Millions of tiny, icy prisms sliver it into narrow beams that flash and twinkle.

During the night, the mountainside has become a huge, dramatic ballroom.

Standing quietly on the porch of our cabin, we are startled as stately old trees, bent ever lower by the incessant freezing rain, suddenly give up the fight. With a shriek, they shatter. As if unseen cannons have begun to fire, proud trees grown massive over many decades now suddenly explode, shudder and fall. The sharp reports echo and roll across the valley.

Disturbed by falling limbs and the rush of heavy air, the branches of nearby trees tinkle and chime in noisy protest as ice coated twigs strike each other, clappers against glass bells.

Hour after cold hour, deadly strands of silk float gently but menacingly from the sky, taking their toll. In gripping and graceful slow motion drama, the very water which once came as rain in raging torrents to give these hills abundant life now arrives in a new and lethal form to claim it back.

Marveling at its beauty, stunned and rattled by its sudden volatility, we stand mesmerized in helpless and mute observation as forces we scarcely understand reveal themselves as the true giants of nature locked in mortal combat
.
Don Hardy

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