Sky: the sun rises behind Smarts Mountain, twenty-three crow-flown miles to the northeast, rose and pink flowering across the eastern horizon; Mount Moosilaukee, the southern edge of the White Mountains, twenty miles beyond Smarts, capped by serrated clouds, the same shade as the mountain, gray-blue as granite. 5:29 a.m. (sunrise twenty minutes later than June 28, my last entry, when I teetered on the precipice of relocation). 54 degrees, wind E 2 mph. Momentary drizzle. I stand on the edge of Hurricane Hill, contemplating mist that peels off the White River and merges into the Connecticut, an echo of flow. Two rivers cast off moisture like snakes their skins, visibly, viably, vibrantly transforming a walk into a momentary triumph. Above the fog, across the valley, dairy cows wander green pastures. I hear the highway's murmur, the lonesome whistle of a train.
Hermit thrush, a shadow psalm rising out of the hemlocks, reminds me of the pine barrens of Long Island, the slopes of the Green Mountains, a devotion to daybreak. Red-eyed vireos, a devotion to tedium. Three tolerant waxwings perch in a dead shrub, attend a tangle of grapes, some ripe, some green, an avian vineyard on the brushy edge of a meadow. One tanager in the open, summer bright and full of song. Needs a throat lozenge. Athletic catbird grips a Jerusalem artichoke, one foot above the other, a sideways perch below a perfection of yellow petals. Blackbird traffic, more than thirty, low overhead, an amalgamation of flapping sounds. I turn, expecting a car.
My neighbor has two beehives, a statue of the Buddha, prayer flags, and an indigo bunting that sings in the top of a pasture maple, a leafless limb with electric color. Passerina cyanea, a fitting epithet, jungle blue, bright like a butterfly. Although unambiguously and irreversibly gorgeous, blue feathers are a conspiracy of light. Structural color, not the work of pigments. Feathers scatter blue light, absorb all other wavelengths. Indigo bunting, bill up spilling paired phrases, loud and prominent, a chromatic imposter . . . that holds my attention.
Downstream. New geography, a profound blue welcoming, tensions slowly dissolve, a landscape to discover . . . but like an amputee, I feel my phantom home, an urge to go into a room that doesn't exist, to fill a feeder that hangs elsewhere. To find the bathroom at night in the dark when the owl calls.
Welcome home. Welcome back. Welcome to my inbox and the best part of my morning.
Yes, those phantoms linger--but bees and a Buddha and a blue bunting will become familiar in their time. Glad the tensions are dissolving. Once again I smile to see your way with words: "Two rivers cast off moisture like snakes their skins, visibly, viably, vibrantly transforming a walk into a momentary triumph." Transition accomplished, triumphs waiting--good to see your voice again.