It’s zero degrees this morning, as if there was no
temperature outside. The world is
postcard still. Nothing
moves. The air is crisp and I
breathe it in slow, not wanting to freeze my lungs or disturb the presence.
Steam curls from rooftops in the neighborhood as if I’m
living in a small village and everyone is cooking breakfast over fires. Thick
snow covers the road and my mailbox.
Black tree trunks brush haiku across the white canvas.
The heavy snow blankets the woods behind my house with
silence. No birds are at the
feeder of sunflower seeds. No deer have followed the creek’s path up to paw
through the white crust looking for green plants to eat. No owls meditate on the branches.
Beneath the snow, mice and woodchucks sleep.
Zero is a door between death and the living. What will be born in me today? What will die?
The dawn rises pink on the frozen horizon, shifts to yellow,
and slowly warms the air from nothing to eight degrees. The crystalline world sparkles in the
sunlight. Crows slide across the sky, their black wings glide on the frosted
air.
A cardinal sweeps to the feeder, his red feathers bright
against the white background.
Another cardinal. One drops
into the snow to retrieve a seed and is buried for a moment to its neck. Wrens come, then chickadees, and a
Downey woodpecker. Their sounds
return life to the brittle woods.
I shiver in my coat and gloves until the stillness moves
inside, along with the quiet of the beautiful cold, then follow the calligraphy
tracks of birds into the wilderness inside.
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