what melts

Is it merely the temperature or a metaphysical thaw, all this melting, this evaporation, this trans-formation; where does it all go; and what is 'it' we are referring to? Not that it is something 'less' because nothing is lost, all is impermanent, the zen masters remind us; all is here, and nothing is lost; no-thing. in the vespers dusk, the scuds of clouds before this cafe window breeze leftward, it may be east or south, or both, I am not sure. These clouds (cumulus, stratus? cumulo-stratus? I forget my cloud taxonomy, from fourth grade; I need a nap, where different clouds can float by in front of a different sort of lens) of dusky gray lavender, ashy dustiness are already rehaped, gone, departed from what my fingers were tapping about moments ago. I do not lament them as lost, or found. Someone a few miles down the road is welcome to greet them. I moved a desk today. It stood in a room, for a few years. I was under that roof some twenty years. I was quick to describe my mood afterward as sad over this but one would have to ask why. Romancing a vision of some ideal that never was? Clinging with claw marks to some sort of cloudy mirage? The skeletal, bronchiated limbs of the winter trees across West Genesee Street stand silently before me. They too are as transient as those clouds above their sight line but one would not think it so readily. Those slender naked branches are eloquent. I bow before them, and them before me.

winter haiku #3 2014

at winter window / comb-toothed icicles stand guard / refusing to melt

winter haiku #2 2014

sun-bleached cityscape / clarion noontide snowmelt / razoring shadows

winter haiku #1 2014

flaky detritus / white dusting chickadee branch / now solitary 

Febyouary

Don't you think it odd that February, the shortest month in duration, has an extra letter, that quirky R, at least to the naked, etymologically untrained eye?

In case you are wondering how that R got into February, the estimable Online Etymology Dictionary ( http://www.etymonline.com/index.php ) tells us:

February (n.)

late 14c., from Latin februarius mensis "month of purification," from februa "purifications, expiatory rites" (plural of februum), of unknown origin, said to be a Sabine word. The last month of the ancient (pre-450 B.C.E.) Roman calendar, so named in reference to the Roman feast of purification, held on the ides of the month. In Britain, replaced Old English solmonað "mud month." English first (c.1200) borrowed it from Old French Feverier, which yielded feoverel before a respelling to conform to Latin.