This Morning

This photo is from last autumn. The female died and the male mourned alone all summer. Just a month ago a new female arrived on the pond. It was this new one I thought was icebound yesterday. The male hovered close for hours but late in the day the two of them had moved to the other side of the pond. Such a relief, such joy!

This Sunday's writing prompt was a quote from Leonard Cohen. We were to write a letter to him in response. Here's the quote and my letter.

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack in everything

That’s how the light gets in ~ Leonard Cohen

Dear Mr. Cohen,

I’m sitting with these words of yours this morning, looking out my window to a landscape that is marked with stark and naked branches and drifts of crumpled leaves made restless by a cool wind. I was out there when the light got in, a mere lessening of the darkness at first and then a sudden rush of gold through a crack in the clouds that made my shadow stretch miraculously in front of me.

Dawn was, in a sense, a perfect offering, the opportunity for a whole new day, similar but unlike yesterday, a day when the swans I thought then to be icebound now floated free, their elongated necks entwined in an avian hug. I had no bell to ring but I did breathe a deep sigh made up of relief and pure joy and a kind of gratitude for all things wild.

I should probably come to the day with an offering – perhaps joy and gratitude and yes, relief that I did actually awaken, are not enough? I turn these thoughts over in my mind, looking for the cracks that will let the light in. I think often that I myself am cracked, flawed in a way that pushes light away. Your words make me wonder if I ought not fuss so much about those cracks, that they just might be a place where light not only gets in but rushes back out, flinging gold into dark places.

With gratitude then,

Pauline

Thanks Hilary (and Tabor!)

Sunday Writing

Hal Borland is one of my favorite authors. He lived a mere five or six miles from my home but I didn't find that out until he passed away. I often walk down the dirt road where his farm is located, trying to see what he saw through his eyes and through his words. My Sunday morning writing partner is also a Borland admirer. Here's her prompt for today's effort.

Balancing the Year.

"The short days are upon us. It will be another week before the Winter solstice, but the day's change now is slight. Daylight, sunrise to sunset, will shorten only another two minutes or so before it begins to lengthen. The evening change, in fact, has already begun; the year's earliest sunset is past; but sunrise will continue to lag on through the year's end....We come to a long Winter night when the moon rides full over a white world and the darkness thins away. For the full-moon night is as long as the longest day of Summer, and the snowy world gleams and glows with an incandescent shimmer.

Year to year, we remember the short days, but we tend to forget the long nights when the moon rides high over a cold and brittle-white world. Not only the moon nights, but the star nights, when it seems one can stand on a hilltop and touch the Dipper. Who would not cut wood and burn a candle for a few such nights a year?" - Hal Borland, Sundial of the Seasons, Dec 16

PROMPT: Have a conversation with Hal, responding to his statements.

My Conversation with Hal

Hal. The short days are upon us.

Me. I’ve been noticing. I sit with my book of an afternoon or I glance out the kitchen window and darkness is swallowing the blue so I check the clock and it’s only 3:45 and I think, “Already?” Of course full dark doesn’t descend until 4:45 or so but the daylight gives way to dusk far earlier at this time of year. The earliest sunset was on December 8^th, almost two weeks before the solstice.

H. It will be another week before the Winter solstice, but the day's change now is slight. Daylight, sunrise to sunset, will shorten only another two minutes or so before it begins to lengthen.

M. And that’s why this is my favorite time of year. The change is negligible but consistent – it’s more than hopeful, it’s a certainty that the earth is turning once again toward spring.

H. The evening change, in fact, has already begun; the year's earliest sunset is past; but sunrise will continue to lag on through the year's end....

M. …and that’s okay with me. I like to waken in the predawn hours and watch the light spread across the sky. Even on snowy days like today, the light creeps up the edges of the earth and spills in my window.

H. We come to a long Winter night when the moon rides full over a white world and the darkness thins away. For the full-moon night is as long as the longest day of Summer, and the snowy world gleams and glows with an incandescent shimmer.

M. I’ve been out of doors on such nights when the earth seems to hold its breath and the only sounds are of my own breathing and the pulse of my own warm blood. I walk the moonpath then, ever watchful for night creatures – owl, fox, coyote. Only once have I seen an owl, ghostly, silent, gliding from its perch in a tree I passed.

H. Year to year, we remember the short days, but we tend to forget the long nights when the moon rides high over a cold and brittle-white world.

M. Not all of us forget. You don’t. I don’t. There are times I would have been happy to meet you in the cold stillness and stand looking across the moonlit snow, knowing that this was as right as the longest of summer days, this time of rest, of dormancy, of renewal.

H. Not only the moon nights, but the star nights, when it seems one can stand on a hilltop and touch the Dipper. Who would not cut wood and burn a candle for a few such nights a year?

M. There is a sharp satisfaction in being both inside and outside on such nights. The cold is bracing, shivery, even cruel. To return to the warmth of a house where a fire burns and a candle stirs the darkness is to know heaven in two realms.