Now the rain is melting the snow, but a few days ago everything was ice. The pavements were ridged with glass, the roads thick with compressed snow and criss-crossed with tyre marks. I went again and again to the woods, down through the tree tunnel, where the branches curve over the sky at every level and the green leaves of the laurel were heavy with snow.
The path there is steep but despite the snow, it wasn’t slippery; the earth was too crumbly, scattered with tree roots, too warm to freeze completely here, where the cover of a hundred trees stopped snow falling directly on it. Everything was quiet, the only sounds the occasional falling of a leaf finally giving in to its burden of snow, or a patter of loose powder dislodged by the breeze. The air was biting and the top side of every branch, every limb, every leaf, was iced. Now, when I go back to the tree tunnel, all is wet, melting, filled with the thrumming sounds of rain.
Bonnie Radcliffe 