RUSH's NEIL PEART: 'A Winter’s Tale Of Summers Past'

RUSH drummer Neil Peart has posted a lengthy "News, Weather And Sports" update on his web site. An excerpt from his posting follows below.

"This story began as a brief introduction to a book review. At the outset, my modest goal was to relate how the reading of a book sometimes has its own story to tell, outside the book's covers — how I happened to choose a particular book, and the events surrounding its reading.

"At the time, I was on my annual 'winter retreat' in Quebec, enjoying a couple of weeks of snowy solitude. I spent my mornings writing, and in the afternoons went cross-country skiing or snowshoeing, so there was plenty of time for thinking. The snow was almost five feet deep, and as I glided or strode across its high white cushion, I found it hard to hold onto the notion that I was so far above the ground — elevated on the surface of another element, water-become-earth, a quintessence shaped by both, and by wind, plus reflecting the sun’s fire in diamond-dust prisms.

"Clearly, I was high on winter.

"After a day or two without fresh snow in the woods, other tracks began to appear n my immaculate cloud—a neat line of fox prints; deer following my packed-down trails to make their own passage easier; the widely spaced impressions like little snow angels left by the snowshoe hares, where they have leapt from one spot to another to feed on the cedars (come spring, those nibbled patches will be five feet off the ground). Their namesake large back feet land in front of the smaller front paws, ready to leap again. Deep in the woods, I might be lucky enough to see a row of holes in the snow the size of salad plates, where the huge moose, the local monarch, has struggled through. Far from roads and houses, I might also cross the purposeful-looking long strides of wolf tracks, sometimes two or three sets widely separated, where they coursed the woods together."

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