A glimpse of the "old" normal

Smaller ponds are now frozen over. Waterfowl, those that are still hanging around, have concentrated on the larger ponds, lakes and rivers. This morning we saw what we think were American coots loafing north of county Highway 36 on the Sunrise River pools. Several vehicles were in the nearby parking lot, presumably duck hunters. Later in the morning, as we returned home, we noticed a large flock of something out over the water. By then the parking lot was empty.

October waterfowl flock in flight

Photo by J. Harrington

Today is the first time we recall enjoying some patches of sunshine and blue sky in the last week or ten days. Starting tomorrow we're forecast to enjoy a warming trend for at least a week. Could it be a portent of better days ahead, that the weather is approaching seasonal normals as we approach "election day?" Let's hope so.

We found our Summer plans for fly-fishing confounded by weather patterns, mostly winds. The unusual weather this autumn would have compounded our frustrations with the sudden appearance of nagging snow storms combined with many hours of southerly or westerly winds. Today is the first time we've noticed many birds on the water, although the fields around our neighborhood have been visited by many flocks of geese. Could it be that waterfowl and cranes are as confused as we are by the changes in weather and climate? In any case, seeing the flocks flying over the marsh brought a smile to our face and warmth to our heart. Even just a glimpse of a "normal" world helps a lot these days.

Call Him Zero

By Sydney Lea

It struck them both as strange: although each pond and lake

clear to the coast was locked in ice, no open water,

the imperious wind kept pushing waterfowl inland. That night

a winter moon stood high and pierced the thin clouds’ vapors

so the boy could contemplate their emptiness inside.

Relentless, the flocks flew westward. The border collie whimpered,

putting his forepaws now on one sill, now another,

as if some odd creature circled the house.

                                                                                          This lifetime later,

a man, he looks back on that stay at her farm, its details clear,

their meanings still vague. His grandmother called it wrong as well,

that the weather should be so frigid even in such a gale.

As a rule this kind of cold needed calm. He sees the fire,

 

the dazzle of sparks when she loaded a log. What seemed most amiss

was how the old woman’s house no longer felt safe that visit.

He wanted and did not want to know what the dog might know.

He tried to picture the menace outdoors. He longed to shape it

so that he might name it. And after these many miles to now,

away from the ruby glow of the metal parlor stove,

from that blue-eyed collie, from the woman he so admires and loves

recalling that night; after so much time,

                                                                                          he still believes

that to name a thing is to tame it, or at least to feel less bewildered.

Not Death, for instance, but The deaths of Al and Virginia, his parents.

Not the abstract legalism, Divorce, but The disappearance

of my sweet wife Sarah, run off with that California lawyer.

 

Not simply Alone, but I have no children. Was that the wail

of geese coming down the stovepipe? If so, it would be a marvel,

but he knew it wasn’t. The caterwaul from the barn was alarming,

and more than it might have been had Grandma herself not startled—

after which she put on her late large husband’s threaded farming

coveralls outside her housedress, which rode up and made

a lumpy sash. She stepped out under cloud and bird.

He would not follow. Rather, he stood

                                                                                          indoors to wait

until she came stomping her boots through puddled barnyard holes

like a child herself, kicking ice shards to scuttle along

like beads from a broken bracelet. No matter. The world had gone wrong,

violent and void at once. She said, The mare has foaled. 

 

On tiptoe, she read the mercury out the kitchen window,

then told her shivering grandson, We’ll call the new colt Zero.

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