Ode to Frost

It's 7 am.   I pull on my hat, mittens,scarf, coat and rubber boots and we creep put of the house like stealthy thieves. 

The world is white with frost. The air is crisp and sharp in my lungs.  I must scrape  a thick layer of ice crystals off of my windshield in order to drive away.

We hop in the car, shivering.  The first rays of the morning  illuminate the traces of frost left on the windows, like diamonds glinting in the new sun.

I turn up the volume as Ray Lamontagne laments in his Tennessee mountain twang. We head for the sea, to the summer house on the Grève D'Amours (love shore?  seaside of love?) where the garden, now bereft of its beans, carrots and tomatoes, awaits the winter snow.

I open the car door and the dog leaps out and runs ahead of me toward the sand.  Boots crunch, the dog's hot breath condensing in white puffs in the cold air.  Aside from the duck family paddling close to shore, my dog companion and I are the only beings here.

We are the only travellers in this universe.  The dog runs crazily, delirious with joy.  I am enraptured by this moment at this place.  Every shell, pebble, grain of sand glitters with frost.  Its luminous touch traces the intricate outline of feathers, seagrass and stone in delicate lace.  The frost magnifies the intertidal life and I can only stand awestruck, the sole witness to this magical world.

We walk on.  I am stunned by the clarity of the water and sand.  The frost becomes a lense through which to view the world for the first time.  I see green and garnet seaweed like other worldy shapeshifters, waiting for the sun to warm them up before they slither back to the sea.  Here and there, pieces of worn emerald seaglass glint through the pebbles and I pocket them, my secret talismans.

We make our way to the end of the shore and we have reached the end of the world.  One of my favorite Robert  Frost poems creeps into my mind as I recall the lines:
                                                         So Eden sank to grief
                                                         So dawn goes down to day
                                                         Nothing gold can stay.
It's time to go home.