One must have a mind of winter/To regard the frost and the boughs of the pine-trees crusted with snow;/And have been cold a long time/To behold the junipers shagged with ice/The spruces rough in the distant glitter/Of the January sun;/and not to think/Of any misery in the sound of the wind.
—Wallace Stevens
—Wallace Stevens
You didn't smell the percolating coffee until you reached the little landing with the colored glass window, two-thirds of the way up the stairs.
But that was in spring, when the house was still empty. It felt like camping, nothing but my air mattress on one of the shiny bedroom floors. The rooms echoed as I walked through them; the old-fashioned coffee pot was cheap, and the coffee was terrible.
I was so happy.
Now the cats are curled like brown fists on the bed, and the window on the landing is solid ice. The sun is blinding, yet no match for the cold.
It takes 15 minutes to get ready to go outside.
The snow piles up like books, never reducing, but the crunch of our feet on dog walks is musical—slightly vaudevillian. The plow is king, and the rogue pick-ups hurl themselves into the driveways for which they have been hired, sometimes in the morning, sometimes late at night.
The big plows know just when during the storm to come, and the roads are always tidy and easy to drive.
Your face is scalded by the cold air—ironically, as if by hot coffee.
