December 26: Cat

This is our holiday weekend visitor, an appealing tiger cat that a friend found digging through her trash a few weeks ago. She took her in, sequestered her in a spare room so as not to traumatize her own, older cats, and made a valiant attempt to find her owner by calling the shelters, posting signs, and getting her scanned for a pet chip. The cat was skinny and very hungry but otherwise healthy, and interestingly, her front paws had been declawed. Someone had cared for her once but wasn't looking for her now. 

When our friend went away for a long weekend over Christmas, we agreed to cat-sit with the option to keep. After spending five days with this anxious little cat, we don't think we can bear to send her away--especially knowing she might end up at a shelter. Other than an understandable fixation on her food dish (she meows and gets a little frantic if the center of the dish isn't covered with visible food), she's very friendly and seems to be settling in. She has even relaxed enough to play around with a catnip mouse. Right now as I type she's curled up on a pillow in the middle of the living room floor, the picture of contentment.  

We haven't named her quite yet, perhaps still a bit hesitant since our beloved old cat's passing a little over a year ago to fully commit to a new creature in our house and our lives. We lose our hearts to these short-lived animals so easily, even though we know those hearts are going to be broken over and over.

Stray cat could be wild,

her pelt an ancient pattern.

Now she shares our house.

December 25: White Christmas

Our weekend feline visitor woke us early this Christmas morning and observed with typical nonchalance as we happily engaged in our Christmas morning rituals: stocking, then breakfast, then gifts. Outside snow fell. The perfect, magical touch.

Even now as we drive to my in-laws', the snow is beautiful and a bit mesmerizing as it flies at the car and swirls in the highway. Everywhere, the accent of white makes the landscape seem just a little more festive.

As snow sweeps over the St. George River, an eagle waits in a tree. A crow perches like a weathervane on the peak of a snow-covered barn roof. The dark, sweeping boughs of pines carry white highlights. White snow piles atop hay bales wrapped in white plastic. In another field, snow accumulates on rolled bales left spread throughout the field like hulking beasts. Tidal inlets and rivers fill to the brim with clots of ice thanks to the new moon high tide.

And then we're through the main body of the storm and the sky brightens. Our spirits are high. Soon we'll be with family, and the holiday celebrations we began with a dear friend on Christmas Eve will continue.

Snow on Christmas Day.
And a flurry of traffic
"to grandmother's house..."

December 23: Crows at Play

Early this morning as snow was falling the crows in my yard seemed pretty wound up. Perhaps they too were dreaming of a white Christmas. Three or four of them were flying from tree to tree, chasing each other, hopping around on the ground, landing on one branch together and then dispersing, and otherwise just messing around.

Apparently they're trying to make the most of the snow, because they're still at it five hours later. First I observed them walking around, checking things out along river's edge. Then they flew across to my neighbor's big flat floodplain of a lawn, where three of them tugged at a fallen branch in the snow. Another seemed to be engaged in digging up leaves from under the snow. That one then got distracted by a squirrel, which it alternately chased and was chased by for a few minutes. Meanwhile, two of the initial branch pullers had moved on to rolling in the snow side-by-side. They sort of barreled their bodies into the two inches of snow, practically touching each other, then scooped up snow with wide open beaks. At one point it looked like they were feeding it to each other. (Awww.) They rolled around next to each other for a while, literally stretched out in the patch of snow, sometimes preening or play-attacking each other.

Anyone who doubts animals' capacity for play has clearly never watched a flock of crows in freshly fallen snow. Or a dog wrangling with a new squeaky Christmas toy, or an otter sliding down a snowy hillside. Rather than debate the emotional life of animals, why not just enjoy their obvious enjoyment?

It's not for my sake
the crows play in the fresh snow,
yet I'm here smiling.

December 22: Long, dark night

Winter Solstice: the shortest day of the year. From here on out, light will linger a little longer each afternoon. But tonight is the longest night, and it's going to be a dark one. Already the few stars still visible are hazy behind a sheen of clouds. And the moon is just over 4% full--for all practical purposes, a new moon. This plunge into the depths of darkness will make it that much more joyful to emerge into the light tomorrow, with perhaps a little snowfall to really boost our holiday spirits.

The year's longest night,
cold and dark too. Come closer,
honey. Warm me up.

December 21: Chickens

There's something so wonderful about chickens, how they just do their own thing unencumbered by human anxieties and neuroses. They have their own set of issues, I know. But looking out and seeing chickens from a friend's flock peck away at the ground and chase each other around just like they always do, while icy rain falls and cars slide off the road all over and school release on this last day before Christmas vacation is actually delayed until the buses can safely drive kids home, is somehow a comfort. Some places, with some creatures, life just goes on regardless.

Chickens peck cold ground,
cluck softly, like usual,
no thoughts of weather.

December 20: Snowman

This afternoon I observed an interesting meteorological phenomenon: the light of the bright orb of the setting sun was refracting upward into ice crystal-laden clouds, creating the illusion of three suns stacked on top of each other, largest on the bottom. A sun snowman! If I hadn't been zipping down Route One at the time, I'd have tried to get a photo for this seasonally appropriate vision. I guess we can still have our snowmen of sorts, even when there's no snow on the ground.

Staring at the sun
in late December gives me
visions of snowmen.

December 19: Flying Geese

Driving through town with the car stereo playing loudly, I looked up to see a flying flock of geese in silhouette against the cloudy sky overhead. I was reminded of the weaving pattern my grandmother liked so much called Flying Geese. The repeated Vs of the pattern was a common theme in the borders of her wall hangings, as a reference to her pet goose Max. A barnyard goose of the domestic variety, Max was probably too fat to ever fly. But the pattern was there, a touchstone for the potential for wild beauty. Like what I saw from my car this afternoon--the very shapes of wild geese flying enough to stir my heart and memory.

Silhouettes of geese
black against winter white sky.
Yet still I drive north.

December 18: O Tannenbaum

At one time when I was very young, before my parents divorced, my father was a high school German teacher. For that reason I grew up with well-worn copies of Beatrix Potter's Die Geschichte Des Peterchen Hase (The Tale of Peter Rabbit) and Die Geschichte Von Den Zwei Bosen Mauschen (The Tale of Two Bad Mice). Although I also had an English version of Peter Rabbit, it was years before I knew what was up with those two mice pillaging a doll house. And the only German word I remembered from either was Puppenhaus: dollhouse--I think in part because it sounded vaguely like something I wasn't suppose to say. I did know one other German word from that early childhood time: Tannenbaum, Christmas tree. I think at one point when I was three or four I was even able to sing a line or two of the Christmas carol O Tannenbaum in German.

I've always had a fondness for that carol, perhaps because of those faint early memories. And I hum it to myself now as I admire the Christmas tree my husband and I just decorated. Its branches green truly are delightful, and now, beautifully bedecked with our many ornaments, each of which carries its own set of memories from my childhood on through our married life together.

Little house, small tree.
Boughs laden with memories.
Lights in the darkness.

December 17: Christmas Bird Count

We start our Count at the Rockland Breakwater

Despite heavy morning snow showers and bone-chilling cold, we enjoyed a wonderful day tromping around outside with friends old and new, counting every bird in sight for the annual Thomaston-Rockland Christmas Bird Count. 

In our count section, we ended up with 50 total species (47 by our group on land, with 3 more added by a friend coming in to Rockland on the Vinalhaven ferry). Highlights included: long-tailed ducks gobbling in Rockland Harbor, a merlin zipping past the Breakwater, purple sandpipers discovered by Paul on a solo second trip out the length of the Breakwater and back, and a lesser scaup in a pond at the Samoset Resort. A red-bellied woodpecker at a feeder was a first for our Count section, I think. A raft of over 600 coots in Chickawaukie Lake was a definite high count for that species; I'm sure we were underestimating our tally for them. A soaring bald eagle reminded us of a friend no longer with us who used to join us for the Christmas Count--she was always the one to spot an eagle. We watched crows chase a red-tailed hawk. A lingering yellow-rumped warbler chased down in a swamp thicket turned out to be the only warbler seen all day in the entire Count circle. Lots of very pretty tree sparrows turned up, a bird we only see here in winter. And in the mammal department, we came upon a basking harbor seal and a swimming muskrat. The most numerous species (besides coot, of course) was Canada goose, which flocks up in great numbers on the Samoset golf course, followed by mallard and herring gull. No surprises there, but plenty of simple delight.

Yesterday's flowers; today's snow

The best moment of the whole day for me was at the very end, when in the deepening dusk I walked a short distance alone into the woods in a last ditch attempt to find a golden-crowned kinglet. I didn't find a kinglet. Instead, off in the distance, a great horned owl called. Those low, soft notes: hoo-he-hoo hooo hooo, how they carry through the cold air through stands of pines and spruce. You almost feel them as much as hear them. I stood in the trail and just listened, feeling a little shiver run through me that had nothing to do with how cold I was. The owl was beginning its evening, announcing to the creatures of forest and field below: I'm here and soon I'll be hunting. 

One owl calls at dusk.

Alone, I hear its summons,

stand still, and shiver.

Winterberries in the snow

 

December 16: Setting Moon

This morning when I raised the bedroom blind, I noticed the waning gibbous moon shining palely through the trees. We're used to seeing it rise evenings at the front of the house, over Mount Battie. Seeing it out back felt a bit like seeing someone you know in a strange context--they look familiar but a little out of place. But the moon was where it was supposed to be, following its usual arc from east to west, helping me orient myself at the start of my day.

A familiar face
looking in the back window.
Morning: setting moon.

December 15: Transportation

Transportation is the name of my new book of poetry, my first, received this morning from the printer. And transported is how I feel to finally have a "real" book through which to share my poetry with people. The only shortfall of the book is its lack of haiku. This is the cover image, for which I am very grateful to Eric Hopkins:

Waterways in the Bay, Eric Hopkins

Eric graciously let me choose the work I wanted for my cover. This piece conveyed to me the pure joy of taking in the beauty of this landscape we inhabit, as well as the sense of motion, of flying above it all and gaining perspective--themes that I think recur in my poems, most of which are set in a similar landscape. This is one book I hope gets judged by its cover. But I hope the words hold their own, as well.

Twenty years of words,
flashy cover--at long last,
my very own book!