Monday, February 15, 2016

Prairies like palaces




Long ago, I visited the Amalienburg in Munich, a rococo hunting lodge built for an emperor.

The jewel box Hall of Mirrors there is pale blue like this sky, with branching silver tracery and silver sunlight pouring in through wavy glass, and the trees in the parkland outside grow into infinity in a round of silvered mirrors.

All in a circle, like a glade of silver-white birches in the snow.




 I scatter seed on the ground for sparrows. 

For blue jay, peanuts. 

Suet for woodpecker. 

As dusk falls, rabbit will creep out under the moon and glean whatever is left. Tomorrow I will find her small pellets left in the hollows of my footsteps. 





I gaze out at leaden skies and snowflakes falling down, up, sideways, uncertain as feathers riding freezing breaths of wild air.

But once the clouds make the snow, it must needs land. Finally it will settle, on branch, shingle or ice-slick ground. 

Birds speed past. Cold. Yet this morning I heard a cardinal outside my window, singing his breeding territory song, and now the eagles warm and shelter their clutch of three eggs from harm.