Taking My Cues from the Birds

A hibernator's guide to winter

The clouds rolling in that night made the outline of a mountain for the dogs and I, a mountain out of clear dark sky, slowly receding.

Night’s acoustic beauty. Little dog noses rooting through fresh snow.

Black squirrels and crows and starlings out on the cold days calling and working.

To the north a chorus of crow squawking, the occasional black pirouetting above.

My aversion to winter had become total, until I heard the crows.

Gazing out an airplane window at land quartered, forested with houses, veined with highways. The way we angle our heads down and off to the side, angles of benevolence or longing or appraisal or sadness or awe. The pause this view produces.

The airport terminal was chirping with sparrows that no one seemed to hear, human eyes glued to anything touchable, holdable, screens, books, children on laps. Headphones, ear plugs, voices in ears, up close, lamenting, fomenting. The sparrows busy collecting all the food.

And today the birds are busy in the yard, at the turn of the half-season, in this optimistic sunlight. Chickadees chatting in the cedar, then a close swerve of wings, a jay screech, a dove squeak.

The depths our feet have carved into the snow. Shallow prints of rabbit. In both cases the tracks are doubled, one blazing a trail, the next making use of what’s already there.

And this morning a fresh foot of snow and the candle lit. I have tried to look in on the poplar in the park but I would need hip-waders. I have been inventorying my seeds. I’ve been readying the dyes and reluctant to proceed. I’ve been limited, slow of thought, hesitant, lunging. I’ve been repulsed, brought low by the clamour of news, trying to cut through the manipulations. I’ve been inward, then laser-focused, then in fog. I’ve been taking my cues from the birds: when to hang back, when to get to work. I’ve been keeping close tabs on the moon, reading about food and berries and forest and fire. I’ve been attempting to thin back, attempting to take part.

The mourning doves crowd onto the porch in dangerous wind, their olive bodies huddled together, startling when I step outside to gauge the air. They leave their down to swirl around on porch and snow and into the front hall. This down that says the season’s turning.