It’s late February and I have now heard birds calling in the morning and heard the first doves cooing at sunrise, which, by the way, now arrives at 6:16.

We had ice in the harbor yesterday and the days still provide “character-building” temps and winds, but the back of this generally mild winter seems broken. Of course, having said that, I have just tempted fate and we will no doubt get a freak storm any minute.

But to honor Maine winter, even as we now all hope to press straight into spring with minimal mud-season, here’s a quiet winter image that makes clear the power of the season at its best.

Sea smoke is a wonderful phenomenon…when the bay is literally steaming with a differential of 50 some degrees, with the water in the high 40’s and the air down below zero. Once or twice I’ve run RAVEN in conditions like this and it is most extraordinary. Not at all like fog that settles down upon you, sea smoke rises right out of the water and, just like the steam it is, wafts silently upward into the strangely altered, glowing silver sky. It can be entrancing.

But there lies danger and death within this beauty. When it’s this cold you make sure to take no chances…none whatsoever, other than going out in it. One slip, one significant miscalculation and, well, you are immediately in a world of trouble

Here’s a poem written by Philip Conkling, inspired by Deep Freeze

Sea Smoke  

The reddish eye of winter’s sun

Rises late in December’s run.

Light’s now measured by the hour

And in candlelight’s flickering power.

Relentless winds breathe their hoar

On ice-rimed stones along the shore

The twisted bones of drifted wood—

Buttressed trees that here once stood.

The sea is cut by slanting ray,

Shards of light break the bay,

No wing aloft, nor sail in sight,

The year is done – all taken flight.

Tell me then what this could be?

Pale vapors on a smoky sea.

The cold of dawn’s a spectral fire

Of foggy spirals rising higher.

Now that summer’s heat’s expelled

From the deepest depths upwelled,

Distant isles in ghostly air,

Rise and shimmer in the glare.

Island people know this truth,

Learned by heart throughout our youth,

When winter winds bare their teeth,

It’s cold without, but warm beneath.

December 2002

To purchase this work, click on the image