Winter visitors
Red-bellied Woodpecker hangs upside down from a Common Lilac branch, pecking at the suet.
American Goldfinches in winter plumage eat peacefully at the tube feeder while Black-capped Chickadees swoop, land, grab a seed and fly off again.
Dark-eyed Juncos hop on the ground unperturbed by American Red Squirrel in their midst.
White-breasted Nuthatches walk headfirst down the squirrel-proof cylinder, poking their heads in to get a seed or two.
Carolina Wren pulls out a seed and tosses it, then another and another, and finally flies under the American Yew with a wren-worthy seed.
These birds bring me such joy.
I want to see them more clearly, both as embodied beauty and as neighbors. So now rather than readers, I wear bifocals at my desk while writing, and I am becoming better acquainted with these winter visitors.
My inner three-year-old meets ice
Given unseasonably warm temperatures melting snow into puddles followed by seasonably cold temperatures freezing the water, I knew there would be ice on the trails this morning. But I was imagining patches, not corridors of ice.
I pulled on the cleats I’d brought with me just in case and picked my way along the trail edges, slipping occasionally as I crossed back and forth when the other side looked easier to navigate. Until I came to a fork where I was surrounded by ice and the path sloped downhill. Surveying my options, I saw from Asha’s tracks that even she had slipped.
“Here goes, Asha” I said and sat my snow-pant-clad butt down on the ice and slid and scooched and laughed.
Tender hope, holy beauty
“I brought you a present,” Cora says when her father drops her off at our house. She rummages around in her backpack and with a big smile hands my beloved and me each something small and soft.
“A Pussy Willow bud!” we both exclaim.
“How did you know,” I want to ask, “that my heart needed this tender and holy reminder of beauty and hope in our broken world?”
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