The other
day as my world began to take on the cloak of night, just before all lay in
artificial moonlight, curtesy of my next door neighbors flood lamp; I unhooked
the tie back to let the bedroom curtain hang limp, and a small rush of
excitement caused me to hold my breath as I caught a brief glimpse of a large
rabbit hopping through the snow and disappearing into the bushy grass haven of
my very small prairie. It was a good
ending to a freezing day of falling sleet, which reminded me so much of the sound of dried oak leaves still hanging on the tree rustling in the wind, followed by the silent fall of snow.
If you know
me at all, you know my next move was to investigate the not so tempting world
of wild rabbits. They might as well have
EAT ME stenciled onto their thick furry backs, as they forage in the dim light
of dusk and dawn to escape detection of all creatures’ great and some fairly small
that like to snack on one of the ingredients of Hasenpfeffer. They catch pneumonia fairly easily in damp
cold. Our winters are always damp cold. This deep freeze of nearly a week can be
deadly cruel to them… to us all.
Okay… enough
of the real world of nature. Perhaps we
might venture into the not so real world of Yvonne, as the real world of my
life has thrown in the towel and moved to the dark side of the moon. My cousin phoned me to let me know my
most favorite aunt in the world (her mother) had died from Covid in a nursing
home. She was a vibrant woman I stayed
in touch with my entire life. I loved
her. I just cried.
My cousin revealed to me that she had her mother sent to the hospital and the hospital sent her back to the
nursing home. She had her mother sent a
second time to the hospital, and the hospital for a second time returned her
mother to the nursing home. She died
there alone and not taken care of. To
not matter… one wonders about the real meaning of life or if there is any
meaning at all.
Today the
warmth of the sun in a cloudless sky is creating a world of sleet and snow looking
rather sad as it melts a bit here and there on its journey into eventual oblivion. Fallen snow no longer tantalizes as too many
muddy depressions of warming plants, or animal and bird tracks walking over the
tops of tracks already there have created a havoc of blemishes across the
surface of white.
We ventured
out into it to replenish the bird feeder and bird bath, and to clean the snow
off of the car so the sun would melt off the sleet. It was delightful reclaiming my poopy porch
railings from the hungry mobs of birds, but it will be a battle reclaiming the cars from
the ice encrusted driveway. The ice bound
roof around the deck is giving us a headache wondering how much damage it’s
creating as it seems impenetrable to methods of breaking any of it off.
As I look
out my living room window onto the lumpy surfaces of old snow, and baring
branches as snow loses its grip and falls softly to the ground in clumps, the
ice covered roads are still fairly quiet.
I like it that way. There is such
beauty in the silence of an otherwise noisy existence, where even the
multitudes of visiting birds seem to be quieter as they search the barren land for
substance until warmth returns.
Morning tea and coffee
Sleet
Sleet with bouts of falling snow
(below)
Cardinals
Mockingbird
Blue Jay
Out of the heart of life,
lingering on the horizon of what little is left,
it burns dimmer and dimmer,
until vanished into the grey,
where sky ends and faith begins.
To know all too well,
these feelings of quiet despair,
when life lets go of that which was created out of her bosom,
and sends it off on wings of eternity itself.
Oh, how it dwells,
loosely locked,
in the fading memories,
of age itself.
Robin
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