They Will Have Snow by Now in Vieux Saint Lambert; Referencing that Lodestar of Mythic Lore; So Whitehot, it is Blue; Bluestars; the 'lost domain'.

Beautiful in its' precision, and finesse in terms of technique- the painstaking process, thought provoking; the grandeur of scale-., but it was not beautiful in the sense we have come to associate with the superficiality of physical beauty.

Despite the extreme fakery and self deception we partake of in terms of our own, and other peoples bodies; our endless search for elusive beauty in ourselves and others- do we need to be reminded of the cadaverous grotesquerie in both death and decay that awaits us all?

Yes, perhaps, in this instance to contemplate the humanist dynamic in terms of realism outside of 'normative' mannered concerns, so often accepted as fact.... in terms of figurative representation.

The "living deadness" of the frozen motionless figures, not having the reassuring fakery of the mannequin; is perhaps one stimulus that could easily frighten a relatively small five or six year old child. Lifelike deathliness? Is that possible?

In that time of the March fourth , four day blizzard of 1971, The extreme excitement regarding the onset in Novembers past, of those first greylit days of imminent snowfall... that peculiar pungent frosted smell in the air of frozen water; the strange ethereal evenness of light preceding the downfall, silence , forboding , every leaf long blown and lying in discontented beaten heaps about the trunks of oak and ash trees.

Then the first stray crystalline blooms on mitten and sleeve, with their unique beautiful precision and finesse, headlong in a random chaotic matrix that said; infinity...

Wherefore this dashing darting mass? The overture flutes straying in the 'waltz of the snowflakes', and the 'rightness' of that descriptive trope.

Trees, roofs, ( I want to write rooves ), all of manmade structure now etched in a muted clarity as the transformation so enchanting to our childrens eyes and minds commenced. The gathering speed of the crowding flakes, swirling and eddying this way and that, and the snakelike serpentine skating over black tarmac soon to be gone...gone to become a wilderness of white yet again, and deep enough to show us what Terrouxs really looked like in 'les neiges d'antans'of the 1890s'.

The variety chaotic within the formal framework, lending sinuous grace to both what was already graceful and what was not. The madly dancing, curling and swirling sting of updraught and gusty blast, carving the quiffs and drifts of forky tongues on gable clefts and eaves troughs.

The snows of yesteryear are the returned first bulbs and sprouts of spring, these lakes, these drinks and oceans pissed out over centuries, and reformed , refigured in this dazzling mystic whiteness. Yes ,,we children like to taste the snow in our mouths , we feel the blizzardy berserk, ( I want to write 'berszerck' ),... we are engulfed in the cheek stinging storm. We love it , we will not go in , no! not yet! We must encompass the storm , filling our lungs with the foaming ice, seeing our world from every new angle renewed and lunar. Its coming in here! Its coming down the Chimney!, and what is a chimney without snow? Snow to crest its smoky lip. To compete with its smoking maw. Mittens coated matted with congealed pompoms of icy mothballs?? Eyelashes sticking together? Mukluks undubbined beginning to freeze the inside of skisox?

No problem, but its getting harder to lift our knees to make it over to the fort. The effort is great, because everything is slowed down by this natural occurrence. Vehicular traffic and ourselves in particular , but enough of it will allow us to jump from the roof, into a ten foot drift of the freezing fluff.

The endurance is easier when you know you'll eventually be in by the fire with hot cocoa and rye bread, toasted. And when those wet longjohns come off, those rosy thighs stung red and raw by the windchilled frost alone!

And outside, the blue of evening , less blue if it keeps snowing , as it does , when it did for four days straight. To come to a country where the weather crews speak in terms of 'snowshowers', I have to laugh and think back to the snows of days gone by, where the term 'shower', couldnt remotely describe the epiphanies of chaotic nordic onslaught, that we hoped would last forever.

And it did , and does last forever imprinted , etched and tomed in the annals of melting firefrost, the infinite lodestars of our progenitor, this light , this white fire , these bluestars....scattered all over the land.