At some point today, I looked out my studio window and realized that I needed to get closer to the sky.
I shrugged my way into layers of knits, wool, boots and tights, stepped out the door with Penelope and made for the hills.
There were two sharptail grouse sailing on a stiff wind pouring down from Kinport Peak.
Penelope chased voles through snow down into the roots of the sage.
The flower skeletons rattled about in the cold.
I tried to identify plants in their winter garb.
It’s sometimes difficult.
Have you ever had trouble recognizing people when the cold weather sets in? I’ll see friends about town, friends I know plenty well, only when they’re wearing coats and toques it takes me a time to recognize them in their new wintry garb.
It’s the same for the wildflowers and their naked little winter suits. I have to peer closely to know who I’m looking at.
I eventually left the trails to make my own paths.
I kept an eye peeled for furs and feathers and tracks and bird songs:
Beneath one juniper, a clattering of chickadees.
The loose coils of barbed wire hanging from my favorite fence line were drooping with cold.
The snow was holding memories.
As I walked, lines of poems jotted themselves down in my mind:
“…next time I will lean in to listen, as the trees do over deep waters…“
When my extremities began to hum with a faint numb
I made my way down off the West bench, through a wooded draw, across a road, through the streets to my front door.
My lips were dumb when I finally stepped inside the house
and already, the day was starting to fade, as winter days do, before we’re ready.
Before it’s time.
