7:21 a.m. 27 degrees, wind SWS 0 mph. Sky: hot sun climbs, cold half-moon sinks. Teased by the orange-rising sun, clouds separate out of the blue-gray ceiling into isles of cotton. Bright and white in a now cerulean sea. Flurries settle on a half-an-inch of fluff that outlines every branch, peppers every trunk a zillion white lines. Hemlock limbs sag. Christmas ferns collapse. Permanent streams: hillside gargle, dark water hemmed by white, a tight fit gets tighter. Wetlands: a glazed and glorious landscape. Reeds more white than beige, evergreens more white than green. For a brief, enchanted moment, my valley becomes a Hallmark greeting card or the backdrop for an Andy Williams Christmas Special. Pond: a deer wandered over the surface, loops and lines, north to south, back and forth, mammalian calligraphy penned by split hooves. Certainly, hunger didn't drive the deer onto the snow and ice: the only food, a couple of overcooked leaves, brown and dry as dust. I believe the deer enjoyed itself. Danced under the gleam of a half-moon shrouded by clouds on a white night in winter.
Deer walks along the road, drags its heels like a boy scuffling in oversized boots. Thoughtful chickadees. Bellicose jays. Seven crossbills, a hushed pass over. Tinny-sounding, nuthatches. Two crows, tangibly and unarguably tolerant . . . of everything we do.
Vermont, as the world imagines it, purged of ills. A confined perspective . . . no opioids, no poverty, no hunger, no domestic violence, no climate change, no alcoholism, no racism. Greeting-card Vermont—lots of syrup and cheese and designer beer—a ruptured reality.