[at-l] An interlude -- John Muir quotation

[TOKTAADN@aol.com]

I wanted to share an extraordinary and evocative paragraph from John Muir's 
book, "The Mountains of California" about snow in glacier meadows:

"Thus come and go the bright sun-days of autumn, not a cloud in the sky, week 
after week until near December. Then come a sudden change.  Clouds of a 
peculiar aspect with a slow, crawling gait gather and grow in the azure, 
throwing out satiny fringes, and becoming gradually darker until every 
lake-like rift and opening is closed and the whole bent firmament is obscured 
in equal structureless gloom. Then comes the snow, for the clouds are ripe, 
the meadows in the sky are in bloom, and shed their radiant blossoms like an 
orchard in the spring.  Lightly, lightly, they lodge in the brown grasses and 
tasseled needles of the pines, falling hour after hour, day after day, 
silently, lovingly -- all the winds hushed -- glancing and circling hither, 
thither, glinting against one another, rays interlocking in flakes as large 
as daisies; and then the dry grasses, and the trees, and the stones are all 
equally abloom again.  Thunder showers occur here during the summer months, 
and impressive it is to watch the coming of the big transparent drops, each a 
small world in itself -- one unbroken ocean without islands hurling free 
through the air like planets through space.  But still more impressive to me 
is the coming of the snow-flowers -- falling stars, winter daisies -- giving 
bloom to all the ground alike.  Raindrops blossom brilliantly in the rainbow, 
and change to flowers in the sod, but snow comes in full flower direct from 
the dark, frozen sky."

Happy trails,

Solar Bear

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