They seem to have settled on a doorknob at the post office but there is still crazy stuff going on around town. The local fish market offers a special in their window “Will trade crab for leprechaun.”
My landlady’s puppy Lily got her first experience with snow this weekend. It has snowed the last two nights. Yesterday morning she attempted to eat as much of the mystery mixture as she could and this morning the deck was still covered with an inch of snow when she went out. At first she stepped lightly, unsure of the cold compound, but then she started running around frantically energized by her discovery. It was a wonderful sight.
The weather this weekend has been a wonderful sight in general. On Saturday I helped build a wood fence on the Habitat for Humanity project site in a constant drizzle. On Sunday I went to the Cape Arago State Park and as I was standing on the cliff edge a dark cloud front moved in and started to shower tiny hail on me. The park cleared out except for me. I enjoyed the “tink tink” of the hail falling as I continued to explore. Then I sat down and wrote a poem about the fleeting convergence of nature I experienced there. Now, don’t laugh, this is my first attempt at natural history poetry in a very long time…
The Unlikely Calm
The waves pound down upon the basalt mounds and valleys that make up the coast – white and frothy with the agitation of their journey towards shore
The hail momentarily falls down upon everything – small, white balls of frozen water forced out of the clouds on their voyage towards the abrupt shore
The wind blows the moss-covered pine trees – sturdy with years of stubborn rooting against the winds that are flung upon the shore
The shore thrives on such a multitude of convergences
dark clouds meet white clouds
waves meet their death on the basalt cliffs
wind meets resistance with the gnarled trees
Everything seems at once at peace and at once at odds with their convergence. The power with which they meet their fate makes it feel as though it is forced by some higher hand
But if you look closely there is a moment – after one wave crashes, after one gust of wind blows, after one cloud moves through – when all things flow together
The water flows down to a common valley in the basalt, the sun glistens one streak of comfort on the broken water, and the bird chirps in the tree giving peace to the unlikely calm
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