7:01 a.m. 25 degrees, wind N 0 mph. Sky: a festival of lights. Fingers of rose radiating east to west out of a bloom of tangerine. Between the fingers of color, blue-gray grades to blue-white. Rimmed in sunlight, small clouds gather above the marsh. Crescent moon low in the east, a medallion pinned to a ravishing jacket. An Everglades sunrise without ibis and spoonbills. Permanent streams: shoreline ice very slowly closing in. Rock ice thicker, more beret than yarmulke. Gurgle, hollow and loud. Intermittent streams (and gullies): barely flowing, barely audible . . . more like a creeper than a chickadee. Wetlands: whitened by frost. Deer trails wind through the reeds; pathways of the unforsaken . . . waning days of the archery and muzzleloader seasons. Pond: like a clam shack at the beach, closed for the season (except to the wrecking-ball skull of an otter).
Raven, a joyful volley of baritone croaks. Crows and blue jays, so many, many blue jays. Winter of the Nuthatch, everywhere and vocal. Chickadee in birch twiddling strips of curled bark. No turkeys. No crossbills. No default hawk.
Sunshine spills down the slope of Robinson Hill, spreading across the marsh, where every winter for twenty-four years, I imagine a snowy owl in the reeds, perched on a hummock. Like the white owls on Jones Beach, bold against a backdrop of sand and spartina. And a roll of gray waves. One winter, an owl may stop by on its way to the beach . . . so much happens under cover of night. As the sun erases frost, no patch of snow resolves into a white owl.
On deck: the second night of Hanukkah. I lit the candles alone last night and wore Casey and Jordan's green felt yarmulke, rimmed in gold. Made (and ate) too many latkes, the next best thing to being with my family . . . a grievance I need to redress.