Vignettes
Just some bits of writing I wanted to save.
One hundred miles away, an immense glacier carves a mountain valley, as slowly and gently as the millennia.
In summer the sun pours across its surface, and the ice groans and creaks as it warms. Icebergs calve off its vast face into the river bay at its feet, and the newly revealed surfaces cast glinting reflections to the mountains round about.
The seasons change. Snow descends the mountainsides and covers the moraine atop the glacier. The air above the glacier gradually turns to breathable ice, flowing down and then off along the turbulent river running from the glacier's base. Funneled by the long river gorge until it reaches hurricane strength, the wind bursts out upon the wide and rolling Matanuska-Susitna Valley, rattling every house. In one neighborhood, a strained powerline gives way and families live by candlelight for a day.
One hundred miles away, the glacier beneath the snow stretches, moans, and crawls over another ridge.
Look! Out in the yard!
Invisible, yet so present
The restless and hoary
Ghosts of Ungulates Past.
So there I was one day
Driving through an unfamiliar town.
The sea - somewhere to starboard?
Keeping a weather eye open, I spot something -
A glint, a shimmer? Down that dark shady lane?
Oh. Never mind. Just a sea of white rental cars
Half-glimpsed, parked beside a shining resort.
Have you ever looked at your hands as something other than the sum of their parts? Really looked at those two graceful, skillful masterpieces? These beautifully woven living tools of vein, muscle, bone, and cartilage obey every half-thought command from your mind. What good gifts God has given us.
One hundred miles away, an immense glacier carves a mountain valley, as slowly and gently as the millennia.
In summer the sun pours across its surface, and the ice groans and creaks as it warms. Icebergs calve off its vast face into the river bay at its feet, and the newly revealed surfaces cast glinting reflections to the mountains round about.
The seasons change. Snow descends the mountainsides and covers the moraine atop the glacier. The air above the glacier gradually turns to breathable ice, flowing down and then off along the turbulent river running from the glacier's base. Funneled by the long river gorge until it reaches hurricane strength, the wind bursts out upon the wide and rolling Matanuska-Susitna Valley, rattling every house. In one neighborhood, a strained powerline gives way and families live by candlelight for a day.
One hundred miles away, the glacier beneath the snow stretches, moans, and crawls over another ridge.
Look! Out in the yard!
Invisible, yet so present
The restless and hoary
Ghosts of Ungulates Past.
So there I was one day
Driving through an unfamiliar town.
The sea - somewhere to starboard?
Keeping a weather eye open, I spot something -
A glint, a shimmer? Down that dark shady lane?
Oh. Never mind. Just a sea of white rental cars
Half-glimpsed, parked beside a shining resort.
Have you ever looked at your hands as something other than the sum of their parts? Really looked at those two graceful, skillful masterpieces? These beautifully woven living tools of vein, muscle, bone, and cartilage obey every half-thought command from your mind. What good gifts God has given us.