a white cap slides off

a white cap slides off

a copper-top solar light

in the spring snowstorm

The Spring snowstorm that started last night continues all day, tiny flakes falling steadily, but with the temperature hovering just at freezing, not much accumulation. The blacktop highway glistens with snow melt, while our gravel road is white only on the hill sheltered by a tunnel of trees. Walking to the house, my footprints in the fresh snow quickly turn into puddles. At the gate, a cap of snow has slid off the copper top of a solar light, one frozen teardrop clinging to the edge. Weird mixture of Winter and Spring. 

lavender spirals

lavender spirals

fan outwards, casting captured

sunlight on the snow

The little pillar solar lights along the path to the house make delicate lavender spiral patterns on the snow, the spokes growing longer as they curve outwards. I do not know why the pattern forms a spiral -- some mysterious love of beauty. A whitetail deer has stepped near one of the lamps, breaking the perfect symmetry, creating an intriguing interplay between organic and inorganic forms. The small goblet-shaped light near the door got buried during the last snow storm. When I dig down through the snow, I am guided by the glow of the still weakly glimmering lamp. The liberated light eater radiates its rays around a little bowl carved into the snow by cold fingers.

sun lights the solar light

sun lights the solar light,

heats the dark metal, leaf, stone,

melts the sparkling snow

Before today's snow storm, last week's snow was nearly gone, melting faster around anything dark, a leaf, a stone, the black metal post of a solar light. At night the little solar light, fueled by stored sunlight, spreads its solar-like rays on the sparkling snow.