6:58 a.m. 30 degrees, wind SW 3 mph. Sky: a rolling topography of gray clouds . . . gray, gray, gray. Then, at sunrise, in the west, the ashen morning blushes a subtle trace of pink, the morning's shy smile. Permanent streams: ice masks the top of rocks, tight like yarmulkes, some with visors that extend out above the bubbling, splashing flow. Wetlands: four crows, framed by gray and suggestions of pink, head north, ushered by the wind. A hushed and crooked flight. Pond: an unmarred sheet of white, except for a narrow, nearly snowless periphery and a finger of dark water in the southeast corner, where the stream unloads.
Pileated calls, a truncated laugh from a phalanx of pines. Hairy woodpecker on maple administers a woodland telegraph, barely audible—a whispered message from the threshold of sunrise. On a maple, white-breasted nuthatch walks up-trunk. Not to his liking. Departs and repeats. And repeats again—an enigmatic search for breakfast.
Deer tracks in the snow. Dogs show interest. Red squirrel on a pine bough, palaver turns to music, a surprisingly sweet trill. Dogs show no interest.
I stand at the edge of the woods, hands cupped to my ears, shifting through a sunrise transmission. Chickadees. Red-breasted nuthatches. A flock of red crossbills, high in the pines, far uphill, a living thread binding me to the far north. Raven. Communicative crows. Blue jays and mourning doves and a lone brown creeper, nearby but cryptically blended into a world of dabbled light and fifty-shades of brown. A delicate bird, an unalloyed assortment of mottling—spots, streaks, bands. Like a piece of fine-grained wood.
On the verge of Hanukkah, I enjoy a personal Sabbath, the simple pleasure of passing my time with something more eternal than a text message.
Feeling more isolated than ever as Hanukkah approaches, it was nice to connect with your water and birds as something like the Sabbath. Thank you.
"...the simple pleasure of passing my time with something more eternal than a text message." Therein lies the real meaning of "holy" for me--a connection to the eternal. And that connections takes time and contemplation and awe. Today many are caught in the world described by James Gleick in FASTER: THE ACCELERATION OF JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING and Nicholas Carr in THE SHALLOWS: WHAT THE INTERNET IS DOING TO OUR BRAINS. May your personal Sabbath and the celebration of Hannukah be holy spaces for you, as are the chickadees and the pond.