“Winter then in its early and clear stages, was a purifying engine that ran unhindered over city and country, alerting the stars to sparkle violently and shower their silver light into the arms of bare upreaching trees. It was a mad and beautiful thing that scoured raw the souls of animals and man, driving them before it until they loved to run." - Mark Helprin (from Winter's Tale)
Like some winter animal the moon licks the salt of your hand,
Yet still your hair foams violet as a lilac tree
From which a small wood-owl calls.
- Johannes Bobrowski
It's dark now when I climb up to my studio each morning, and dark again when the work day ends. Coming and going, I hear the owls calling out to me from the shadows of the woods. By dark, the hill is another world altogether. It belongs to them.
