Yellowstone National Park in Winter

150th celebration Yellowstone National Park.  It does not give up winter easily.  The geysers cough and crackle and keep their warmth inside.  Old Faithful is the first to break its glass jail.  Splashing in the sun like a ghost train in the Rockies.  Warm rivers are the only winter fire.  Snow the only blanket.  Animals who survive are as stubborn as the land itself.  Bison have passed through the ice and the pain, standing dark and still, trembling in the wind.  Trumpeter swans preen and float.  The plain begin to look beautiful.  Swirling through snow on currents of ice, they spin free.  The Aspens are crystal.  The pines are glass.  An iridescent bone yard, waiting for the world to thaw.