Glass Tornado

It seems like an age since the first time I photographed an icicle hanging from the eaves or the soffit of my home. Before insulation was as popular as it is today, homes in my neighborhood (while growing up) sported some real whoppers. I remember that, while I was a child in the Detroit area, there were always people injured and even killed by huge icicles falling from buildings - usually downtown. These days, when the occasional build up on the flashing of my roof lets go, ice falls two stories to land on my deck, and even that tiny shift of watery mass causes my house to shake. Imagine several hundred pounds of water ice falling from a five story building to the sidewalks below!

When I received my first camera, a Brownie Hawkeye (remember 620 film?) - I always tried to find an interesting angle on icicles - especially on a sunny day, when the light would refract through the ice and paint rainbows on the siding. The image taken from our office window made me thing of a tornado hovering over the Houghton area -- a tornado made of glass...

Mick

Beware the Glass Tornado

Lurking just beyond your vision's fringes,
The Glass Tornado hides in plainest sight.
So cold it freezes, so bright it singes,
It stalks you silently, refracting light
As quietly, it daily grows longer -
And more massive, as it just hangs around,
Getting thicker, but not growing stronger.
A quick-growing menace that makes no sound,
Flash-frozen child of white storm in its place,
Soffit symbiote and portico leech,
It loves a precipice as its home base -
Loitering and lounging, just out of reach.
I tell you: Beware the Glass Tornado -
When it falls from the roof...don't be below!

Mick McKellar
December 2007