Sunday, December 13, 2009

Forty Below Zero

"A hell of a night for a walk," the man I meet on the sidewalk says. It is dark and cold and we are both covered in so many layers of clothing that we would not know each other, even if we had met before, which we probably have. Both of us are walking fast, fast enough to make our own heat. The stars are crisp and the snow is, too. When winter like this sets in, I measure the temperature by the kind of squeak beneath my feet. It is very squeaky tonight. The closest I can come to taking a picture of cold like this, is the frost on my front windows. Still, I am walking each night, just me and the man who thinks it is hellish. Which it could be, were it not for the infinite sky - Orion striding southward, the moon a waning crescent, the crunch of my feet carrying me quickly through all this darkness. As I walk, a children's poem by Oliver Herford, sings in my head and I speak it out loud, the words muffled by my scarf:

I heard a bird sing
in the dark of December,
a magical thing
and sweet to remember.
We are nearer to spring
than we were in September,
I heard a bird sing
in the dark of December.

Later, in the night, sleeping, I dream of that bird - a shadow of a bird, really, perched on the bare branches of one of the trees I walk beneath each night. It is cold, but he is singing and I am walking. I cannot hear his song, my ears are covered, but his beak is open, cloudy puffs of song float from it, and I know he is singing, "WE ARE NEARER TO SPRING THAN WE WERE IN SEPTEMBER. . . "


Summer View From My Kitchen Window

Summer View From My Kitchen Window
I am already more than a week into my summer holidays and just beginning to settle into this greenest of seasons - so glad to be at home with my windows and my light. I am just learning how to post these blogs, spending too much time in front of my computer, not enough time with the sky.  The morning began with thunder - an hour of pouring rain and thunder!!  Long after sunrise, the sky was still dark and ominous, but then suddenly the sun broke through. I put on my garden shoes, grabbed my camera, and went out to the flowers . . .   

After the Rain

After the Rain
After all that wild weather, the day lily leaves were covered with such quiet raindrops . . . 

After the Rain

After the Rain
One side of my yard is lined with leafy peonies - the grandmother of all flowers - pink, white, deep, deep red.  I have been deadheading the flowers all week long, but this one, just opening, survived the storm. I have lived in my house for nearly twenty years; these peonies were here long before I moved in and with any luck will be here long after I am gone.