brutal deep-freeze, heavy snowfall blanket, ice dams on roofs, melting drips through ceilings the hill resembled a resort ski condo development appropriate considering the city-operated slope on the other side of the expressway runs a single chair-lift I tour the surrounding woods on cross-country blades and observe bald eagles wintering along the Merrimack and recall the rainforest of the Olympic Peninsula, desert along the Yakima, views down over the Mississippi or Potomac or elsewhere in New England . spread your wings, then, in the thawing