Bird of Prey

Friday 12 Dec 2012

The morning has risen in tones of soft blue, filling my bedroom, and later, I notice, the living room.  Why have I never noticed this here?  vuja De, I have never been here before.  Light shimmers this morning in my own dwelling, the soft glow off water in cave, where no shadows can be made, for the light is reflected from all around.  Once, I awoke in a snow hut, near Lake Zimmerman, and purple and green clouds appeared to be soaking in through the ceiling.  The ceiling was wet - or, actually, no, touching it made it clear that it was snow melt refrozen and glistening, and the slowly changing colors were the sun making its way up, or the Earth it her slow roll, and the sun was just a silent spectator lording over all the life and color given.  Lo, even the sun knows he is made.  Orange streaks crept in, and I lay still and slow on the snow shelf.  I had thought I was going to freeze to death, had eventually felt content with that, and only then closed my eyes to the world to let the coldness take me, only to awaken to such splendor.  That was the first time I felt as though it was winter, that season.

The first day of winter this year belongs to this today.  Hot sun and frostbit grass.  Hot tea on the trail and just a few sips now and again; breathe, let the crank help you, breathe, sip.  All is effortless.  Out into the meadow behind Lee Martinez, hard left, and there is a massive bird swooping from my left, down, down and low, and she's going to collide with me.  I squeeze the brakes hard, and startled, I should think, she drops the small animal she's carrying and banks for her rested tree.  Somewhere in the grass is her hapless prey.  There, it crushed the frosted wild rye and bromegrass on its way down.  It is a squirrel, huge, fattened for the winter ahead, sacrificed for this magnificent bird to feast upon, for she must prepare for the winter, too.  The squirrel looks lively.  It's big and stretched out, like it was reaching for something when it was caught.  The majestic bird watched me from her perch, other black birds hopping around her, while she just gazed, non-chalantly.  Shall I climb that tree when she is away, to check out her lofty, nested cave, just to see how others live?  A nestfull of dead squirrel, perhaps.

Let this mean that winter will warm my spirits this season.  Let it be hard-earned grace and patient waiting and searching through slumber.  Let dreams lead me, let my reading lead me, let all coalesce and come to fruition, whatever is supposed to.  Let there be work to occupy, and let those who are supposed to help and push that work along make themselves known.  There are flying squirrels, and there are flying dead squirrels.  Omen?  The calf has been fatted, and you shall partake.  Or, do not eat of the road-killed squirrel, I will bring you hawk-killed, free-range, organic squirrel.  Or, life is all Darwinian survival, and you are but a silly squirrel looking around for a nut, when you should have been watching the skies for the predators.  Or, this is the most amazing thing you will see all day, a glimpse of the real things that go on all around you, while you worry about what movie or what book to get into next.