The patience of winter

Sunday.  How quiet it is here although there are distant rumbles and sirens.  The birds, too, are quiet, I wonder why?  It is 9.30, it is light and the clouds are scudding from and not to the east.  The sky is a filled layer of cloud but you can see the movement by the variation in tone and texture.  There is a brightness in the sky, holding as it does the sun’s absent treasure and here the air is cool and awake, holding the moment, filling the day.

The ferns still feather the air, nodding softly and enjoying the slow stillness of winter.  The ivy keeps guard on its advance position, waiting for warmth so it can move forward again.  The pebbles, though, the pebbles are more alert than in the summer for this is their season of cold, grey roundness, their home.

What are the trees doing now, where is their awareness?  Has it sunk into the roots as we hide in our homes, or does it enjoy the nakedness and bare shape of being in winter?  Are the branches aware of holding the sky, and whipping it into wind, the buds like sleeping babies going where the parent takes you without wondering why?

And the water that holds warmth round our shores to ameliorate our winter chill freezes and thaws in ponds and buckets and puddles, a yin-yang dance of stiffening and softening.  The dog doesn’t change.  She still sits next to me, thighs touching in a shared morning encounter, her muzzle oscillating gently as she watches over the garden with her nose, ready for any fox that might chance to pass through. But I am different.  The seasons sing different songs in my blood and I am enjoying the patience of winter. 

The pigeons have started to coo.  We are all waiting, lost in the large moment that is winter, that is Sunday, that is today.