January Light

At the end of January, light scatters sideways into the wooded landscapes here as if Apollo were throwing spare change from his sun chariot to the light-starved denizens of the Upper Valley. It strikes the sides of things: trees, rocks, the neglected kayaks that made it to shore but not to storage.

Circumnavigating Anderson Pond in snowshoes, upright mostly, makes one a kind of moving shadow-casting gnomon on a frozen sundial. The scuffing chilly circuit slowly distributes the sun’s rays around the trudging body. The rooted, stoic hardwoods and conifers along the way have no such advantage, small as it is these cold days in the heart of winter in the heart of New England. Their shadows sweep the snow in the slant sun like dog tails as they forever sit and stay.

In truth, the light of late January is cold. Under the weight of dusk it doesn’t just fade — it shatters into a sky full of winter constellations: The Hero, The Hunter, The Twins, The Seven Sisters, The Bull. The only warm light in the frigid night comes from the waxing moon, grinning like a Cheshire cat, who somehow gets the joke.

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