I walk, because I've been told exercise and sunlight help, but the sharp
air seems to freeze my ears as I reach the park. In the pseudo-silence
of urban winter, small noises cut through the tinnitus of a thousand
cars siphoning like blood cells into the city a half hour away. My
footsteps crack and crunch across snow that has melted then refrozen to
blanket the ground like mounds of crushed glass. Geese fly low, so
close I hear the squeaking of their pinions. Are geese happy? I wonder.
What must it be like to live only with the urges of instinct, to seek
the simple things of life, directed only by wordless need and wordless
fulfillment? What blessed stillness must fill them, at times--pulling
tender grass under the sun, for instance--free from all self-critique
and inner evaluation of motives and performance? As I pass, ice in the
center of the pond cracks, invisibly, with a sound like two huge
mittened hands clapping, and creaks at the edges like a screen door
hinge. I trudge home, shattering moth-wing ledges of ice hemming the
sidewalk. They sound brittle, like plastic made vulnerable by the cold.
Such precision, such beauty! Thank you.
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading! Always lovely to "see" you here.
Delete