250311 winter came back covid never left, five years on

 March 11, 2024

Snow ghosts walk east like pilgrims,

phantoms whirl in fury, rise cloudy into the frozen wind, sentient,

smoke over the snow like Tash through the Narnia woods.

the wind roars up the ridge, a furious ghost highway. 

winter returned pretending it had never abated.

melting, dripping, the snow lay old and done in heavy drifts and piles. rain fell to dispel as much of winter as it could, knowing spring was not come, laying plans.

*****

This house is a ship in a sea of snow. The snow laps at the porch, snow fathoms deep, or only two feet, yet it keeps us from going to the ridge, or up the hill into the woods. The windows are portholes with the snow splashing like ocean waves. 

Wind ripples the snow into waves, blue as water.

*****

Yesterday, Rocky got me up at 5, Today it was 4! Yesterday, I thought he was going to be sick, but today I suspect mating season. Most of the winter he has kept off the fields because the snow is so deep, but now he can walk on the strong crust and is venturing off-road. He has never gone out of whistle range, but I am happy to have the tracker. It is probably irrational to worry when he is out and about, but I can't feel easy, always concerned about his safety. I have thought that he finds it a drag, but I like to think, now, that he feels important, like a security agent tracking important data! "Don't you worry, Mumma. I'm on it!" 

***** 

Covid: five years ago, today, the pandemic was declared. It seems now that the world pretends it is over. I do not know if hospitals routinely test for it, anymore, but people don't, in general. Tests are no longer free. Masks are almost never seen; even I don't wear one except in a hospital. Most stores have taken down the cashier partitions, and hand sanitizer stations, though the 2 metre distance markers remain, worn and faded, on the floors and walls.

Covid has joined the ranks of influenza, tuberculosis, measles, and other communicable diseases, many of which are kept in check by vaccination. Unlike some, the covid vaccine is not effective in the long term, and must be renewed often. I suppose that we had to break out of the social restraints in effect 2020-22. And yet it is relative. There must be other social restraints that we now respect, that were not in place a thousand or ten thousand years ago: wearing clothes, eating with a fork and knife... (Restraints or constraints?)

*****

During the brief warm spell, Rain, Tal, Fox, and I, played outside. Rain made a snow sheep at Fox's request, while I made a snowman. Tal cleared snow, and fetched wood from the shed. 

Icicles formed as the night chill came on and then the next day curved around, sinister, as the roof melted some more.

Through the two days of storm, I watched the blowing snow all day, never tired of the fierce, wild magic.

We have not seen many sunrises with the weeks of overcast skies, even during the long cold weeks.

My calendar's yearly records show first vulture returned north, and snowdrops on the lawn, in Toronto. Meanwhile, here in the Green Mountains, even as the temperature rises above 10 degrees, we are still in a wilderness of snow and ice.

Mumma Yaga