...an angel tear upon the cheek of love

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

This post is linked to:

Saturday's Critters

My Corner of the World