Yesterday’s freezing rain coated each twig and bough with a quarter inch of ice, and I awoke to a glittering world. It’s too slippery to walk outside but I throw open the window and snap this scene.

Everything is covered — from the mailbox flag to the leftover leaves of last summer’s climbing rose. Everything is covered — and everything is gleaming.

What this photo does not capture is the drip-drop-plop of all that ice melting. It sounds like rain, only it isn’t. It is, instead, the sound of beauty fading.