There's light for the light-hearted;
impenetrable darkness for the grumpy

Wearing spikes on our hiking boots
and gaiters up our lower legs,
we climb a steep slope
at the far point of our Saturday hike,
sticks in our hands;
two aged four-legged creatures

The ridge lies like a dragon's back
along Lake Saw-Deep,
and the snow is just right
to charm us;
deep enough for a fairy-tale,
but not so deep it exhausts us

Muffled bangs reach us
from an undefined place
out in the great somewhere

At first we believe them to be sonic booms
from jetfighters exceeding Mach 1,
even though the sky is dead silent
and filled with snow flakes
and not engine sounds from planes

but the booms roll extensively,
and keep recurring, elongated, elastic
- and it dawns on us
that they're the result of the ice flexing
out on the lake,
murmuring and booming
in the suddenly quite mild weather

Arriving back at the farm at 2 PM,
as it gets December dark
and the ravens mimic whooper swans,
the electricity fails
down the entire Råne River Valley,
from trees heavy with snow
falling across the power lines

I crawl out into the hall,
finding our head lamps

We fill buckets with water
and light candles
and the stove,
boil water for tea and coffee
on a camping burner
out on the porch,
before retreating
into our books;
Gary Snyder's No Nature
for me;
I don't know what Anna's reading