Transitory transitions

There's ice in the bird bath today. I’m wearing a winter weight sweater. This morning was bread baking time and the house enjoyed the warmth of the oven and the fresh bread aroma. The ground is covered with fallen leaves although most of the oak trees still have lots of leaves hanging on. We’re looking at half a year’s worth of cold and snow before what passes for spring in the North Country brightens our days.

neighborhood oak, fully crowned

Photo by J. Harrington

A week from tomorrow daylight saving’s time ends. Despite some trials and tribulations, come Thanksgiving it looks like there will be much for which we will want to give thanks, not least of which is having made it through another year.

Candidly, I don’t like winter weather but do enjoy the quieter pace as much of the world snoozes beneath a blanket of snow. Many past winters I’ve focused on getting reorganized as a transition from the year past to the one ahead. There’ll be some of that this winter, but I’m more interested in working toward simplification and overcoming some of my Yankee “but it might be good someday” perspective. The garage is still overstuffed despite selling three rarely used bellyboat--float tubes a few months ago. I may even donate or otherwise dispose of some old books and magazines, thereby making space for new additions.

As the year winds down, taking stock becomes easier if there’s less stock to take. Planning for a new year becomes easier if life is less cluttered. In my younger days, it seemed lless complicated figuring out what to let go of and what to hold. Maybe, as I’ve aged, I’ve picked up a variation of Midas’ disease. Everything I touch I want to hold onto because it may be useful some day. As John Fogerty tells us, that’s not the way life works.

November

By Maggie Dietz

Show's over, folks. And didn't October do

A bang-up job? Crisp breezes, full-throated cries

Of migrating geese, low-floating coral moon.

Nothing left but fool's gold in the trees.

Did I love it enough, the full-throttle foliage,

While it lasted? Was I dazzled? The bees

Have up and quit their last-ditch flights of forage

And gone to shiver in their winter clusters.

Field mice hit the barns, big squirrels gorge

On busted chestnuts. A sky like hardened plaster

Hovers. The pasty river, its next of kin,

Coughs up reed grass fat as feather dusters.

Even the swarms of kids have given in

To winter's big excuse, boxed-in allure:

TVs ricochet light behind pulled curtains.

The days throw up a closed sign around four.

The hapless customer who'd wanted something

Arrives to find lights out, a bolted door.

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