Quote of the Day (Poet James Walter Orr, on Sleet)

“The sleet rattled down on the great sloped roof,

like a lion tearing flesh from a yearling kid,

or the caliche clods of a fresh-dug grave,

as they rattle down on a coffin's lid.”— American poet James Walter Orr, “The Sleet Rattled Down”

Sunday and Monday in my area of the Northeast, sleet formed one of the elements in the first “wintry mix” of this season. I am not at all a fan of sleet. It’s not so much the fearsome qualities that Orr evokes in the above verses, but its stealth quality, the way it forms a moving curtain on car windows if you’re driving or treacherous ground beneath your feet if you’re walking.

For these reasons especially, I’m glad this first weather activity of the winter of 2019-20 is over.

(The picture accompanying this post, of sleet on the ground, was taken on March 17, 2007, by Mike Epp.)