Every year it comes to this, I would imagine–though I can’t say I remember it, surprised as I am every time: the air cleared of humidity so you could see for miles if the way lay straight; the leaves in that state of going, that thinned-outness–falling or still clinging–that makes every breeze into its own […]
Read moreThe ears wake first, opening to the songs of birds: titmouse, cardinal, the jay’s cry. They are close to the house and they are in the woods; they are streets and blocks and arm’s reach away. In the cedar, in the dogwood, the beech. It’s time to feed, maybe time to nest. Morning is the birds’ world first. Then the […]
Read moreI had forgotten completely this in the longing for winter—this winter now just past, this winter that wasn’t. Thirty degrees today and sixty tomorrow: I had wished for just one solid week of winter. I worked my favorite puzzle on the coffee table again, the one with the picture covered in snow, the one that […]
Read moreI’ve loved January for a while now. It’s not that I don’t love December and all that those 31 days mean– I do. I love the Christmas tree and the decorations and the lights. And more than that, of course, I love Advent: the awareness of the waiting, the quietness of the birth, the miracle […]
Read moreDuring the few years we lived in Japan when I was a child, I learned to be afraid of the wind. Some of it was the fault of Jeff, a neighborhood boy one year older than I and a teller of tall tales. But much of it was due to the wind itself. The wind […]
Read more