6:33 a.m. 46 degrees, wind WNW 12 mph, spindly red pines sway to the cadence of the wind; other trees screech, rub, moan, speak in tongues much louder than birds; aspen leaves churn, yellow-green and vigorous like so many fall warblers. Sky: a bottleneck of clouds, heaven on the go; embroidered and dark at dawn but, as the curtain lifts, the light grows lighter, jutting highlights and peach rinse. Wetlands: green thread of the main channel fades to tan a little more every day; unobstructed wind across the marsh whip alders into a frenzy. Pond: ruffled surface swept clean; leaves and pine needles pile into the southeast cove, extend the shoreline, give an illusion of stability. Some milkweed still green. Idle Color, mostly off-yellow and browning orange; one red maple on fire, a waning blaze above the alders, vermillion; the afterglow of autumn with nothing left to ignite; just cold, gray, bleak branches.
Crows call in the dark. Chickadees and nuthatches answer. A yellow-bellied sapsucker, the first I've seen in more than a month, mews from the trunk of a maple. Hikes up the tree. Several half-hearted taps. Mews again and then flies south over the lower pasture, over the marsh . . . far, far away. To the coast, perhaps, to a banquet of beach plums. Many years ago, when I still lived at home with my parents, a sapsucker pitched down the beach, its long, white wing-patch as obvious as the tail of a rabbit. A companion told me what it was . . . and why—some things you never forget.
I want to join the sapsucker on the journey south; to arrive on the doorstep of the ocean, the sea smelling of salt, the marsh of methane, terns frolicking above the waves, a marsh hawk gliding above cordgrass, tilting and turning like a kite on a string. Instead, I'm at home in Vermont, on indefinite hold, waiting for a tide to turn. Things could be a lot worse.