I didn’t know what hoarfrost was
until I saw the word used in a poem
and goggled it. The generic diction-
ary person was right there to tell
me: a grayish-white crystalline
deposit of frozen water vapor formed
in clear still weather on vegetation,
fences, etc. Another definition
stipulated that low humidity was re-
quired. That explained why I never
saw it in the Chicago of my youth
or, maybe, I just wasn’t paying
attention. “Gray” caught my attention,
and thinking hoar, as in “hoary,” must
have something to do with it, I googl-
ed dictionary person again: hoar:
grayish white; gray or gray-haired
with age. So, there it was. It was my
frost, hoary frost, gray, old man’s frost.
I had called it frost — plain, white frost
when I saw it spread magnificently
across the high desert ranches and
reservations of New Mexico on a still,
pristine, early morning as I drove toward
Arizona. It didn’t glisten shiny bright
like the ice that pulled down tree branch-
es and electric wires in the storms I re-
membered as a middle-aged man in
Kentucky. No, this frost was muted like a
well-worn, once white blanket covering
everything in sight — fences, telephone
poles and electric wires, sagebrush, hay
mounds, dilapidated homes, beaten-up,
old cars littering yards, hogans — protect-
ing it all from the inevitable harsh winter
winds that would sweep unhindered over
the land until fences became tumbleweed
borders. Then, as I drove southwest as
but one more Snowbird in the flock, I
looked in the rearview mirror, squinted
and saw the hoarfrost disappearing quickly
as the sun rose relentlessly in the east
as if it were chasing me down.