Twelve Moons of the Year. Hal Borland. Significant Sentences.

Significant sentences from The Twelve Moons of the Year by Hal Borland, a chronology of the New England seasons.

January (continued):

"...ice...the cruel beauty of the dazzling glaze that rips trees apart in an ice storm." p. 11.

"When it is a snowflake, ice is one of the most beautiful and evanescent crystals we know." p. 11.

"Often ice is a thing of beauty, but always it is a force, a great elemental, insensate force." p. 12.

"At no other season of the year is the uniqueness of a tree so evident [as in winter]." p. 13.

"Long nights of cold and brittle starlight." p. 14.

"The fox, a shadow in the moonlight...." p. 14.

"And the great horned owl hoots gruffly, then hunts on broad, silent wings, sharp-taloned as the wind, quiet as the brittle cold." p. 14.

"The blue jays look more cleanly blue and white now than at any other time of the year, and the cardinals are spectacular." p. 15.

"...and the snow simplifies the world around us, hides the confusing clutter, the distractions." p. 15.

"Now the trees stand in the winter landscape, patterned against the snowy hillsides and the icy sky, the etched grace of living line...." p. 16.

"...buds are the promise a tree makes to itself that there will be another tomorrow, another year." p. 17.

"...the sight of a cardinal against a snowy landscape is spectacular." p. 17.

"But the ultimate voice, the timeless voice of winter, is the boom of the ice, and it is one of the coldest voices there is." p. 20.

"Ice, which split the mountains, carved the valleys, leveled the hills." p. 20.

"We stand at the windows and see the snow, the flakes of crystal perfection, feathering from the sky, and we remember all the winters of our lives." p. 21.

"Snow, winter's own cold, white blossoms...." p. 21.

"The air sparkles with one's frosted breath." p. 22.

"The snow whistles underfoot." p. 22.

"...bare branches rattle in the breeze." p. 22.

"Twilight dissolves into the brittle darkness of another winter night." p. 23.

"The owl is a bird of the cold winter night, and it its voice makes the moon-shadows quiver, that too is part of winter." p. 23.

"January's full moon marks a time of bitter temperature and biting wind." p. 25.

Squirrels: "...reckless treetop chases." p. 26.

Squirrels: "The speed and grace of a squirrel, the flaunt of that eloquent tail, the breath-taking leap from high limb to limb...." p. 27.

"The January wind has a hundred voices." p. 27.

"In the cold of a lonely January night, the wind can rattle the sash and stay there muttering of ice and snow banks and deep-frozen ponds." p. 27.

"Sometimes the January wind seems to come from the farthest star in the outer darkness, so remote and so impersonal is its voice." p. 27.

"There is a simplicity about the resting world of winter...." p. 28.

"The woodshed door creaks on its chilled hinges." p. 30.

"Sounds echo in the cold, heavy night air, a barking dog, a slamming door, a barred owl calling from the dark grove of hemlocks on the far hillside." p. 30.

Tomorrow: February, Part One.