BETTER THAN BERRIES

Early this morning Kaya (who is staying with us for a few days) and I went out looking for winter berries (I'd seen a lot of them up there in a very special patch not long ago) and found that they were all gone, had been eaten by birds and other berry-hungry littlings. But as is common in natural relations, our grief was brief. To Kaya's great delight, we found large, still sun-hidden patches of bamboo and vines festooned with hoarfrost, as though everything in those places was in black and white, the frost icicling off the limbs, the curling vines and remnant leaves like tiny crystal sawteeth. Kaya delighted in running her finger along those icy strings, laughing aloud as the minicrystals piled up on her finger, then before her eyes those little heaps melted from her very own fingerheat into what turned out to be water, over and over again. We stopped at every patch of frost along our walk, so that Kaya could do much of the sun's work, laughing.