1.16.15 Look To The Hills

A Fall Over Friday; a gusty day, as I sit and work on writing projects, pausing to watch the Chickadee and the Downy Woodpecker and the Nuthatches out my study window, feeding happily upon the tree barks, eschewing the feeders and seed strewn upon the ground, for the moment.

     As the ever raucous Blue jay family mingles with several Cardinals, the crowd of Morning Doves cautiously deliberates from the tall branches, being the most cumbersome to depart, thus the easy mark come January and February, of the adolescent Hawks, the occasional flurry of muted grey and white feathers left upon the snow.

      I watch in wonder at the capacity of the towering old Maples to sway, and have such adaptable flexibility for such enormous heavy things,

     

as one lone Crow catches my eye, passing through the tall branches, buffeted about by the wild winds, yet enjoying the ride as they play in the updrafts, spilling about high in the air, then off, and on their way again.

      I leave the warm study, filled with snoring cats, to discover that the old sweet Shiva has wandered down the small stairs herself, a certain urgency to go outside, had an accident, the pup having inadvertently stepped a bit in it, and tracked it clear across the kitchen floor and on into the entryway carpet. Oh well. Out comes the wet cloth to wipe wipe his big furred feet, as he looks equal parts chagrined and unhappy.

      Out I bring the sweet old one, to finish her ministrations, and then stand, the wind sweeping through her beautiful red husky fur she inherited from her mother,

      as I stand at the window watching for when she is good and done with some time in the fresh delicious air. 

                      

     She stands, smelling, the sun in her eyes and upon her wizened white face, then leans down and relishes the taste of snow.   

     Eventually she hobbles  toward the back door, and then, so do I, from inside, out in my slippers as she approaches me,

     and I look to the hills, as the Bible urges, as an old friend had put upon her gravestone some many years ago,

     and there I see the sun shining between huge Cumulus clouds racing by overhead, so that the hills over the river and far from here are bright and colorful in the way that forests are, come winter.

     The wind presses against me and the door and the old dog and bandies about  through the trees, large and small, as one more beautiful winters day moves on its way.

1.16.15 Excerpt: " If She Kept Leaning Back"

      The largesse of life pulsing with it all.

The  winter fields shone with itinerant, golden grasses, pressing up here and there around the snow, with  muted reds from the Sumac trees strung along the curving edges of the hill; while the crimson stalks of Elderberry were barely visible in the sunset ,  their  rich red berries gone into the mouths of creatures, to kill viruses and boost immunity here in the wilds of her broad back yard.

     Mira one handedly pulled her scarf about her neck and mouth, yanked her soft wool cap down over her ears, found the small hand by her side once again, bounced the young one up on her hip a bit, and then continued on in the growing dusk, tromping through the knee deep snows, as she watched them glisten,  imagining each and every snow flake within the whole, thinking on the skies far above the earth, it's sweeping winds and stardust, and the cold drafts that turned small innocent precipitation into small white miracles, falling about her, as she now felt Luisa’s small mittened hand wiggle a bit in hers, and Marten’s growing weight upon her hip, as,  in the darkness before bed, she and the six of them  walked this way, to  the top of the  old conservation field, to gaze upon the constellations so stark and bright in the darkening winter skies,

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      As Alessandro began making up a winter sky song, of course, and Luisa grumbled about her insisted-upon-favorite-nightgown beneath her warm outdoor wear, it's length pulling at her small knees as she struggled to take steps through the snow, jerking upon Mira’s hand, just as  Starling came running up and  hugged Mira about her middle, taking her breath away, with that inimitable youthful laugh, though she had no hands for the child,  but turned to look at her, just taking in Starling’s complete shining faced happiness, before watching the seven year old take  Luisa’s  small hand in hers, bending low to point out to the younger one Orion and the belt and the story of the stars in the sky and the orienting humans and animals have done by night, as they slowly moved away;

     When Ruiz ambled up by her, bumping shoulders  in  his easy camaraderie,  as preteens do; she smiling down at him still, giving him a brief hug, realizing it would not be down at him, not for to much longer, gazing at her oldest son in silent pleasure, til his long lanky body and shining long black hair loped away down the field toward Alessandro the small bard, sweeping the young one off his feet with a screech of joy, the two of them tumbling into the soft new snow, Ruiz letting his little sibling sit upon him and fall upon the older one's  stomach while he OOFed and UGHed in a most satisfactory and pleasing manner, making Sandro laugh his young boy belly laugh,  that echoed off into the darkened woods. Mira thought of the walk and the laugh and the hand holding and the sleepy small one on her hip and the older ones talking and the night sky and the only thing she felt was the immortality of it all.

       Moth trudged up alongside, hands deep and sullen in pockets, til  Mira veered a bit and pulled Moth up alongside her in an enormous tight, and she knew, irritatingly loving  embrace, anticipating the  posturing and protest, as she watched the teen acceptance of being  filled and pleased with love and more love. Reluctantly,  Moth put both arms about Mira, and then they laughed as their steps became awkward for the closeness, a three legged pace of sorts.

      While far above, as Alessandro’s night song quieted, standing hand in hand with Starling and Ruiz and Luisa, stock still now, in the quick grasp of the sudden chill , Mira looking on with a heart contented with fecundity and devotity and ease.

    

     Knowing that  if she  craned her neck,  and now she did lean back far enough to feel the disorientation  and dizziness, she could try to  encompass   the amassed stars heralding the universe beneath and about them.

      If she kept leaning back, holding a groggy young Marten and a captivated Moth by her side, she would be consumed by how there was nothing in the world  at all at all but these young ones near her and the pungent quiet of a frosted night,  knowing that all  the wild creatures were making their way in survival and knowledge .

     This pervasive darkness drawn about them , as they all of a one felt stirring within  the endlessness of the heavens, far overhead."                                         copyright  2015

1.16.15 "The Fertile Silence of Awareness, Pasturing The Soul"

There is the dumb silence of slumber or apathy… the fertile silence of awareness, pasturing the soul… the silence of peaceful accord with other persons or communion with the cosmos.”
                                                                          Paul Goodman

1.15.15 The Sweltering Heat of Last September, Out Behind the Library

1.15.15 Try To Overlook

Try to forget the
jar fallen in pieces all over the kitchen floor
The clock whining the late minutes
The eggs stuck to the plate as your
fork quickly lifts them to your mouth

Forget the way your feet
struggle into your boots and the
scarf obscures your whereabouts for
just that one moment as the two of you

Leash the dancing dog and grab the
waterbottle and your briefcase and the
harness and letters
with their gleaming new stamps

Overlook the splatter of
dog water as his Shepherd lips let
loose half of what
is intended to drink down

As your eyes meet mine and we stop, smile; the
winter sun almost blinding us through the
long row of kitchen windows, your
hand coming to rest on my back as we
lean in for a solemn kiss

1.14.15 Just Like You: The Mystifying Aspects of Having a Blog

     There are some things I just don't understand about having a blog.
      Like how some days, there are all these people from Alaska and Germany and France and the Ukraine, reading stuff I write about summer days three years ago, or an even bunch of people all reading certain posts from years ago that I don't remember,
     so I go read them and then remember, and then wonder how the bunch of them came to read that all at the same time on the same day, from way over there in that country.
     It mystifies me.
     Course I guess that's part of the charm of the internet and globalization and blogs; the choices and anonymity and discovery and finding stuff that fits for you.
     Still, It's a bit of a mind blower, sitting here in this tiny place, which we all do, writing stuff that comes to us, and then some of us sticking that stuff on blogs,
     where all these people you don't know decide I guess to share something,
     and the bunch of them, maybe like a virtual sewing circle or book club, or carburetor club,
     all gaze at the meanderings of somebody way over here, just quietly living a life, just like you.

1.14.15 I Think About How Many Birds Could Fly Away and Choose Not To: Winter Survival

I think about how so many of the actual birds could fly away, and choose not to. The quiet adolescent hawks trying to make it through the cold months. 

But remember how many microbes are brought into balance , and brought to their knees, by the cold, which around here, means less pesticide use that year-round places. 

Remember how the trees and bushes and many animals need to rest or hibernate or be intermittently torpid or just quiet themselves down, to recharge, so the they are storing versus expending energy. So that, come spring, they all come awake refreshed.

Lastly, winter is a great time of culling those who cannot survive. Plants. Crows. All living things. Consider how many crows and coyotes and so many other living beings we would have, if all of them survived all the time. That gives you a small idea of how many don't. And in that case, yeah, survival of the fittest, and not too kind there, winter. 

But then, who ever thought life had anything to do with fair?!