February 12.
Above me is a cloudless blue sky; beneath, the sky-blue, sky-reflecting ice with patches of snow scattered over it like mackerel clouds.
Returning just before sunset, I see the ice beginning to be green, and crossing Hubbard's broad meadow, the snow-patches are a most beautiful crystalline purple.
I thus find myself returning over a smooth green sea, amid thousands of these flat isles as purple as the petals of a flower. It would not be more enchanting to walk amid the purple clouds of the sunset sky.
Here the clouds are these patches of snow, and the ice is the solid crystalline sky under our feet.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 12, 1860
Above me is a cloudless blue sky; beneath, the sky-blue, sky-reflecting ice with patches of snow scattered over it like mackerel clouds See
February 8, 1860 ("The ice is thus marked under my feet somewhat as the heavens overhead; there is both the mackerel sky and the fibrous flame or asbestos-like form in both.")
Returning just before sunset, I see the ice beginning to be green . . . See
January 7, 1856 ("Returning, just before sunset, the few little patches of ice look green as I go from the sun (which is in clouds). It is probably a constant phenomenon in cold weather when the ground is covered with snow and the sun is low, morning or evening, and you are looking from it.");
January 27, 1854 ("Walden ice has a green tint close by, but is distinguished by its blueness at a distance.”)
***In this cold, clear, rough air from the northwest we walk amid what simple surroundings! Surrounded by our thoughts or imaginary objects, living in our ideas, not one in a million ever sees the objects which are actually around him. Above me is a cloudless blue sky; beneath, the sky- blue, i. e. sky-reflecting, ice with patches of snow scattered over it like mackerel clouds. At a distance in several directions I see the tawny earth streaked or spotted with white where the bank or hills and fields appear, or else the green-black evergreen forests, or the brown, or russet, or tawny deciduous woods, and here and there, where the agitated surface of the river is exposed, the blue-black water.
That dark-eyed water, especially when I see it at right angles with the direction of the sun, is it not the first sign of spring? How its darkness contrasts with the general lightness of the winter!
It has more life in it than any part of the earth's surface. It is where one of the arteries of the earth is palpable, visible. Those are peculiar portions of the river which have thus always opened first, — been open latest and longest. In winter not only some creatures, but the very earth is partially dormant; vegetation ceases, and rivers, to some extent, cease to flow. Therefore, when I see the water exposed in midwinter, it is as if I saw a skunk or even a striped squirrel out. It is as if the woodchuck unrolled himself and snuffed the air to see if it were warm enough to be trusted. It excites me to see early in the spring that black artery leaping once more through the snow-clad town. All is tumult and life there, not to mention the rails and cranberries that are drifting in it. Where this artery is shallowest, i. e., comes nearest to the surface and runs swiftest, there it shows itself soonest and you may see its pulse beat. These are the wrists, temples, of the earth, where I feel its pulse with my eye. The living waters, not the dead earth. It is as if the dor mant earth opened its dark and liquid eye upon us. But to return to my walk.***
"A book, each page written in its own season,
out-of-doors, in its own locality."
~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2023
February 25.
