Covid Journal, Day 339: Words on Ice

5 degrees and clear this morning.

It's cold. Really cold. Icy cold. Blue-cold. Some friends are reporting below zero temperatures, so I am feeling grateful for our 5 above this morning. Which to Celsius friends, is about -15. Brrrr--that sounds so much colder.

Ice, it seems has always inspired poets, writers, thinkers, and the superstitious. So I thought this morning would be a good time to share some frozen words, so to speak. Like this one by Robert Frost:

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I've tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

Fire and Ice, by Robert Frost

This work by Sara Teasdale isn't about ice specifically, but isn't it implied in the words? The frozen pond, the crisp crunchy snow, silver sunlight...

A Winter Bluejay

by Sara Teasdale

Crisply the bright snow whispered,

Crunching beneath our feet;

Behind us as we walked along the parkway,

Our shadows danced,

Fantastic shapes in vivid blue.

Across the lake the skaters

Flew to and fro,

With sharp turns weaving

A frail invisible net.

In ecstasy the earth

Drank the silver sunlight;

In ecstasy the skaters

Drank the wine of speed;

In ecstasy we laughed

Drinking the wine of love.

Had not the music of our joy

Sounded its highest note?

But no,

For suddenly, with lifted eyes you said,

“Oh look!”

There, on the black bough of a snow flecked maple,

Fearless and gay as our love,

A bluejay cocked his crest!

Oh who can tell the range of joy

Or set the bounds of beauty?

-----------------------------------

I love this old English rhyme, a riddle really I suppose.

The wave, over the wave, a weird thing I saw,

through-wrought, and wonderfully ornate:

a wonder on the wave --- water become bone.

Then I think of all the ways we speak of ice in everyday phrases:

• hands like ice
• the icy hand of Death
• ice-cold
• tip of the iceberg
• walking on thin ice
• break the ice--or at gatherings, ice-breakers
• cuts no ice with me
• ice up
• like a hog on ice
• when the Devil learns to ice skate

And my favorites, the superstitions:

• As long as ice hangs from the eaves will the flax hang from the distaff. I need a spinner to explain this one to me. Is it a good thing,or a bad thing? I think it may mean a good thing, meaning there will be a good crop of flax to spin?

• The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft In Early Medieval Europe says that the "Little Ice Age" in Europe was caused by witches. From Wikipedia: "One example of the violent scapegoating occurring during the Little Ice Age was the resurgence of witchcraft trials, as argued by Oster (2004) and Behringer (1999). Oster and Behringer argue that this resurgence was brought upon by the climatic decline. Prior to the Little Ice Age, "witchcraft" was considered an insignificant crime and victims were rarely accused.[35] But beginning in the 1380s, just as the Little Ice Age began, European populations began to link magic and weather-making.[35] The first systematic witch hunts began in the 1430s, and by the 1480s it was widely believed that witches should be held accountable for poor weather.[35] Witches were blamed for direct and indirect consequences of the Little Ice Age: livestock epidemics, cows that gave too little milk, late frosts, and unknown diseases."

• Putting ice cubes on your porch or flushing ice cubes down the toilet will bring snow. Really? I don't think I want to try it. Although, come to think of it, when our power was off last week we did put the icetrays on the porch. And it has snowed a little or a lot every day since. Hmmm.

From Alan Peterson's poem, "Superstition": 

Meteors, nickel-filled, crystals as fragments

of a solid throne

because of heaven being ice, and shattering

despite some wishes,

I wear topaz for heat, strewn in my iris like straw,

lark's eye wrapped in a wolf skin.

Stay warm, friends. Spring isn't far away, although it's hard to believe at the moment.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.