Winter's Progression #5

Winter's Progression #5

January 27, 2018

Fog and Color

It was a wet day, a “soft” morning.

The morning was a surprise of sunrise color in varying shades of pink, salmon, lavender and purples in the sky, all the way down to the horizon. The sunrise had turned buildings, trees, and forest floor to pinks, peach and blues. Colors were reflected in the still waters of the woodland.

Fog had settled heavily over the land like a white blanket. A broad, bluish-white stripe stretched through the woodland, fading to a darker layer below.

As the hour progressed, the great ghostly layer rose and floated from woodland bottom to upper hills, crawling further uphill to the horizon on the other side of the woods. Soon it would settle across the adjacent farmland.

Cottonwood Pond and the Creek

The Creek winding through the bottom land

The woods to the southeast

Cottonwood Pond and the Creek

The woods to the north

Cottonwood Pond, the Creek, and the woods to the north

A little later, the morning sun rose in full glory above the trees, bright white, burning off the ghostly forms. Sunlight shimmered on the farm field and lit up the southeast sides of trees. Gradually, the sun's rays reached down into the lower parts of the woodland and illuminated the Creek, turning it into a glass-like ribbon.

Every twig sparkled with tiny jewels – drops of fog water that had coalesced, each intensifying the morning sun, diamonds drawing, splitting, refracting the light.

Then the sun's rays reached all the way to the bottom of the woodland and to Cottonwood Pond. The whole woodland glowed with light and filled with bird song.

Soon, I thought, the time would come for frogs to start singing at Cottonwood Pond.