January 20: Thaw

January thaw--
a family of crows grazes
spaces between snow.

January 23: 0 Degrees

Yesterday it was so cold that my brain was frozen. So, no post. Today it's even colder, but somehow seeing this in my car this morning inspired me:

Zero degrees--
a single cold egg
in an owl's January nest.

January 15: Nine squirrels

My husband noticed them first: a bunch of gray squirrels disporting themselves in the trees behind the neighbor's house. The leafless branches made them particularly visible as they flung themselves from limb to skinny limb. We tried to count, "Four, five... no, six..." We ended up at nine. Three or four would be chasing each other in a line, slinking rapidly along a branch and up a trunk. Without knowing a male from a female gray squirrel, we had no way of knowing what sorts of social interactions were going on, what hormones were wafting unseen through those bare trees. Was this a bachelor party? A gang? Girls' day out? A singles mixer? Or perhaps the squirrels were, like us, simply enjoying being out of their nests and active in the warmer air of this January thaw.

Nine gray squirrels in trees--
I'm overcome with an urge
to fling myself into the air.

January 14: Thaw

The usual January Thaw is upon us, but it's difficult not to read into the melting snow, oozing mud, and prematurely budding shrubbery something more ominous. Global climate change is the giant elephant sitting in the middle of the room that is our planet. So we can't simply enjoy this brief reprieve from the bitter cold of last week, because we've lost our sense of what's normal anymore. Our climate compass needle is spinning wildly, even as the North Star poises above my house just as it always has. Even the simple love song of the chickadee gives me pause. I know chickadees sometimes sing in winter, but I couldn't help but feel anxious for some reason when I heard one sing today.

Chickadee's premature song--
is it the thought of love
or bad timing that concerns me?