Changing seasons?

 If I'm reading the map correctly, the gales of November have come to Lake Superior in October this year.

I actually went to the NWS Duluth site to confirm that accumulating snow is in their forecast for Saturday. It is. If this were back in New England when I was younger, I could point out that I'm unaware of any time Boston  got excited about a forecast of snow in Portland, ME. (The distance between Boston and Portland is a little less than that between St. Paul and Duluth.) Then again, Boston, as far as I know, has never come close to October snowfall such as the Twin Cities received in the 1991 Halloween Blizzard. One of the advantages of being located near the tempering affect of the Atlantic Ocean.

October 14, 2018: a trace of snow fell locally

Photo by J. Harrington

On this date a couple of years ago we received a trace or dusting of snow that melted shortly thereafter. For now, we'll hold off for several weeks before we remind folks about the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, but we have reached that time of year when the "buckskin choppers" get pulled from the cedar chest or the back of the closet and rain jackets get traded for parkas. It's been wet and windy enough the past several days that I've put off climbing up on the roof to clean the gutters and replace the chimney cap that got blown off awhile ago. With luck we'll get enough of a break in the weather to safely finish up autumn's outside chores before winter actually sets in. If not, we'll make do until spring thaw. Meanwhile, we've little doubt that the deer hunters are hoping for some tracking snow early next month to accompany the firearms season.

First Snow

By Arthur Sze

A rabbit has stopped on the gravel driveway:

           imbibing the silence,

           you stare at spruce needles:

                                          there's no sound of a leaf blower, 

                                          no sign of a black bear;

a few weeks ago, a buck scraped his rack

           against an aspen trunk;

           a carpenter scribed a plank along a curved stone wall.

                        You only spot the rabbit's ears and tail:

when it moves, you locate it against speckled gravel,

but when it stops, it blends in again;

           the world of being is like this gravel:

                        you think you own a car, a house,

                        this blue-zigzagged shirt, but you just borrow these things. 

Yesterday, you constructed an aqueduct of dreams

                        and stood at Gibraltar,

                                                but you possess nothing.

Snow melts into a pool of clear water;

     and, in this stillness,

                        starlight behind daylight wherever you gaze. 

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