7:04 a.m 30 degrees, wind NNE 2 mph. Sky: overcast and damp, the sun rises unnoticed (by me, at least). Permanent streams: a loss of ice, except for a birch limb still partially encased, an ice tube with a core of wood, white as cream. Wetlands: from the distant evergreens, pileated laughs across a dull marsh. I answer. My voice shoehorned into the morning. An echo of an echo bounces around the valley. Woodpecker, preoccupied, ignores me. Not a red squirrel. He sits on a nearby limb, exposed, unleashes a public denouncement, an off-key scolding. Seven crossbills, back and forth and back, pass over three times. Pond: closed over . . . again. Undulating ice lines, sutures that bind the new freeze to the old. Pine limb on the ice, broken in a dozen pieces. Flung carelessly as stars. A game played in the secrecy of darkness. Close to the inflow, a round hole in the ice. Chips and slivers on the surface. By the hole, flattened grasses and forbs. Noses embedded in odor, dogs know the identity of the contestant. I can only guess . . . an outdoor version of What's My Line. Then, an image gels into certainty: an otter played hockey by himself—shenanigans on ice—one limb bit into a dozen misshapen pucks. Otter equipped: body for a hockey stick; face for a blade: feet for skates; tail to pivot around. No defending an otter, the Wayne Gretzky of the animal kingdom.
If the moon had watched, he would have smiled.