Mount Kearsarge Shines

Mount Kearsarge shines with ice; from hemlock branches snow slides onto snow; no stream, creek, or river budges but remains still. Tonight we carry armloads of logs from woodshed to Glenwood and build up the fire that keeps the coldest night outside our windows. Sit by the woodstove, Camilla, while I bring glasses of white, and we'll talk, passing the time, about weather without pretending that we can alter it: Storms stop when they stop, no sooner, leaving the birches glossy with ice and bent glittering to rimy ground. We'll avoid the programmed weatherman grinning from the box, cheerful with tempest, and take the day as it comes, one day at a time, the way everyone says, These hours are the best because we hold them close in our uxorious nation. Soon we'll walk -- when days turn fair and frost stays off -- over old roads, listening for peepers as spring comes on, never to miss the day's offering of pleasure for the government of two.