Re. H.P. Lovecraft's "The Shadow over Innsmouth"

As Hallowe'en approaches, I enjoy reading something festively macabre.  This year I've been reading H.P. Lovecraft's novella "The Shadow over Innsmouth." And I've been enjoying it immensely.  One thing that strikes me about H.P.L.: yes, he over-writes, but he knows how to over-write, which is a real skill, a real talent.  

To read the long story, please see: 

http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/soi.aspx

The view from here

After the events of this past week - the shooting on Parliament Hill being large in my mind - plus international events - the spread of the Ebola virus also being large in mind - I can't help but feel particularly lucky to be where I am. 

Today in Norway House it is grey and misty. The snow that I wrote about earlier this month has melted away and the temperature is relatively mild.  The trees and shrubs, now bare, clustered leaflessly together, look like woven baskets.   As I walked back and forth from the college where I teach, only a few ravens were out and about, lazily coasting over the treetops. 

It is, in a word, peaceful.  And that's nothing to take lightly.  

How it begins

It takes more than one swallow to make a summer, the saying goes.  And it takes more than one snowfall to make a winter.  On Sunday, I was willing to say that it was just one of those early snowfalls that one gets in northern Manitoba in October.  A snowfall that would come and would go, sloppily melting away as the temperature crept back up over zero.  But now I'm not so sure: it's snowed off and on throughout Monday and today it's still snowing.  Is this it? Is this winter?  Not all the leaves have fallen yet.   

*

A few words from Patrick Lane, from his poem "Winter 1," a peaceful moment taken from his short, fierce book simply titled Winter: 

The generosity of snow, the way it forgives

transgression, filling in the many betrayals

and leaving the world

exactly as it was.