February 19: Tracking

life lessons

frozen hieroglyphics

of a crow’s tracks

January 27: Fox sunrise

Fox barking at dawn

leaves another line of tracks

across the snowy lawn. 

January 4: Tracking

Across the harbor ice

tracks of a squirrel

visit a lobster boat. 

December 17: Gardens Aglow

Trees strung with Christmas lights

illuminating in snow

the small tracks of voles.

June 27: Where the deer were

Deer tracks in mud.

We follow their trail

through a glade of ferns.

Posted with Blogsy

February 27: Good view

ladder to a deer stand

in the big lone pine

deer tracks in mud below

February 6: Tracking

moon over my shoulder

following fox tracks

to the meditation house

Posted with Blogsy

December 9: Howe Hill

deer track hieroglyphs

marking the blueberry field

the color purple

Posted with Blogsy

March 26: Grateful

Footprints melting in snow--
thank you card sent late
better than not at all.

February 1: Embracing the snow

My husband and I snowshoed up Beech Hill in Rockport this morning, in hopes of soaking up as much sunshine as we could before the next snowstorm rolls in tomorrow. The snow was beautiful--pure, fresh, dazzling, patterned with striking shadows and animal tracks.

 

Snowshoeing on Beech Hill--

our path intersects

that of a snowshoe hare.

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

January 28: Deep snow

Mouse tracks in snow.

I too burrow in,

sleep all day.

 

Posted with Blogsy

June 17: On the trail

Paul and I birded along the Ducktrap River this morning.

 

In the streamside mud,

two tiny animal tracks.

We'll never know more.

Posted with Blogsy

February 20: Shoveling yet again

I'm getting really tired of shoveling snow this winter, and yet whenever I'm outside, shovel in hand, I always notice something that makes me stop a moment and feel grateful for being out there.

Perfect line of mouse tracks
in snow. I hesitate
before shoveling.

February 17: Tracks in the snow

Snowshoed up Beech Hill in Rockport this afternoon with my friend Brian and his dog Jack. The trail up hadn't seen human traffic since this most recent storm. But we observed tracks of many other creatures that had left their mark on the fresh snow: coyote, snowshoe hare, squirrel, mouse, the interweaving paths of a flock of turkeys.

I step over tracks
of many turkeys, each bird
leaving its own trail.

December 18: ...and more snow

Hieroglyphics
of bird tracks etched
in this morning's powder.

December 12: Frozen

Even cat tracks frozen
in the driveway
look vulnerable.

May 30: Run

First run in a few months, could only manage about a mile. But I had to start somehow. Today was spring's first very warm day--in the 80s--and the only bird heard was a cardinal blurting out his staccato song at day's end.

As I jog slowly
down the busy roadside,
I step on deer tracks.

February 27: Hunger Moon

The February full moon of two days ago was referred to by some native tribes as the Snow Moon or the Hunger Moon. Hunger Moon especially makes sense, because this is about the point of winter when it gets harder for creatures living off the land to find food and stave off the seemingly ceaseless cold and snow.

In the snow under my feeders I noticed today tracks of mice, squirrels, and crows gleaning the seeds that the messy Blue Jays spilled. Taking what they can get. Many of us feel a certain hunger for something intangible this time of year, that restlessness for spring to begin to regain control of the landscape again, a renewal of faith in the cycle of seasons. As the effects of global climate change manifest themselves more dramatically, we're going to need that faith more than ever in days to come.

Wind howling,
tracks in the snow.
Dark hunger of need.

December 31: Tracks

As we grabbed shovels to clear the path to the office this morning, we noticed a distinct line of big bird tracks in the snow that had drifted across the front patio. A crow had clearly walked in the freshly sifted snow right past our front door. Around the corner under my feeders, more tracks, smaller, of songbirds hopping in the snow after seeds.

All morning, no birds
but tracks in the snow,
runes cast for the new year.

February 5: In the cemetery

My husband got some new binoculars recently so I decided to walk over to the cemetery and try them out. I don't think I heard or saw a single bird, but I always enjoy roaming around the headstones and finding my maternal grandfather's. He died when I was three, so I have only the haziest memory of him, but I've been able to locate his grave in the cemetery ever since I was five and we lived in a nearby apartment in this same neighborhood. His grave and the adjacent ones of my great-grandfather and great-uncle, whom I never knew, have served as literal touchstones for me throughout my life. I calculated once that I'd moved 15 times before I was a teenager. But no matter where we lived, I always knew where to find my grandfather's grave in Camden, even on days like today when the marker's buried under snow.

The snow revealed signs of previous visitors to these silent rows--light footprints of other humans barely visible on the crusty surface, as well as the deeper tracks of cats, squirrels, and a crow which had walked on the snow before it froze. The squirrel tracks had melted and then refrozen, and their softened edges made them look like a meandering row of hearts.

Familiar gravestones,
heart-shaped squirrel tracks in snow.
I keep coming back.