Ice Fog – Haibun – Friday Fictioneers – December 6, 2014

PHOTO PROMPT – Copyright Janet Webb

Ice fog frosted the trees and bushes white and now with the first pale light of morning the world was a winter wonderland.  Looking like a Norman Rockwell painting but as cold as a miser’s heart.

Students stood waiting for the school bus to come, hoping it wouldn’t be late.  It’s so easy to be frost-bitten on a deceptively beautiful postcard morning in Anchorage. Not an inch of skin was visible, even ski masks covered everybody’s faces.

A couple stood apart holding hands and rubbing noses.

 Alaskan white morn –
ice dripping from old flowers
like a Christmas card

G.s.k. ’14

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Some Background:

In my youth I lived in Alaska, Anchorage  to be precise.  It was one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever lived.

However, when the winter rolled in, it did so with a vengeance.  After three months of near total day light,  autumn came and gradually brought on first normality then it ushered in winter with its three months of near total night.

Temperatures were more moderate in Anchorage than let’s say Nome. But they could still get down to minus 20 and lower without much of a problem.

Ice fog was one of the most insidious winter problems to face in Alaska. You’d be driving down a road at night and all of a sudden your wind screen was nothing but a sheet of ice crystals.  It’s ice fog that so beautifully outlines everything in white, at least in Alaska.  Ice fog can hit between late autumn and early spring.

 

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