Place #4 - Into the Glorious Sun

9:30 am,  35* and warming

Into the Glorious Sun

The morning reminds me of why we chose to live on the east side of the mountains.  Sun, glorious sun!  I'm out by myself today...Tikaani went on a long snowshoe with my neighbors earlier and hasn't returned yet.  The variable temperatures of the past few weeks make the snow magic right now!  For walking.  The thaw/freeze cycle has settled the snow so that it is dense and firm.  My boots hardly leave a print as I walk towards the Game Range...it's a great day to be outside, exploring.

I notice first the absence of paw prints.  Tikaani and I have been hearing coyotes close by over the past few days.  Travel is easier for them when the snow conditions are like this, I am aware of them spreading out over the hills and coming in closer to the house.  They always worry Tikaani with their howling.  She howls back.  I wrote a poem about them:

Coyotes up the ChewuchValley

                                         (for Tikaani)

Coyotes come closer in

after dark.  They worry Tikaani

with their circling.

We listen to their old stories,

but we do not know

what they say.

They are not ghosts,

but they have their secrets.

In the morning, we follow prints

on the road, scratchings, drops

of blood, fur-woven scat.

Tikaani drops her shoulder

into their abandoned scents; follows

their belly marks over bitterbrush.

She wants to know

what they know.  She wants to sing

what they sing.

There are fan shapes in the snow's surface.  Wind scattered pine needles from far off trees have made their way here, and have become encased as the snow softened in the days of thawing.  The snow is not nearly as smooth as last post, "shellacked "was how I described it; today it's surface is covered with patterns of mesh.  Almost as if someone had placed a net on top of it, and left it to set an imprint on the snow.

I am not alone today, after all.  In the distance I see two skiers who are making their way down the northern slope.  They are having a hard time, the snow doesn't give much today, even to ski edges.  I see also now, imprints of two snowshoes...my neighbor have been out in the past few days.

I watch the small black-capped chickadees flit from aspen to pine.  I feel the warm press of sun on my back.  At my feet now, I notice very slight impress of  paws...dogs and coyotes have recently passed this way.  There is not one cloud in the sky.  Just a thin haze to the south.   To the Northwest, Sweet Grasse Butte rises boldly, fully covered in snow.

It is still.  Except for the movement across the slope to the west.  It's my neighbors now, two humans and four dogs...one of those dogs is Tikaani. She's difficult to spot against the snow...but as I watch closely, I see her dark saddle (she's got some german shephard in her) move alongside my friends.  The walkers are moving black vertical shapes...easy to see.

I notice lines, apparent in the snow's surface.  I can't tell if these lines are tracks of a mouse, or telltale of a creature's movements beneath the snow.  Or the marks are signs of the snow itself, as it heaves and moves with changing temperatures.  I don't see any sign of small foot prints on either side of the line, so I think it is only the snow's own story it is telling today.

A few cows are bawling in the distance.  I hear also, the sound of a machine...loud and constant in its rumbling.  I wonder if someone is having a well dug?  As I walk across the broad field, I notice that where someone skied across a while ago, the pole marks have widened, they now look as big as draft horse shoeprints in the snow.  The snow is slightly pock-marked here by mist and last week's rain.  I am creating my own company of noise, with each boot step, the snow crunches.

I've decided to visit my favorite tree on this bench... the old apple tree I've written about before.  I notice there is rusty red new growth on some of the branches, and leaf buds.  The tree does not stand straight, but lives in a constant bend towards the east and the south.  Most of our wind comes out of the North, so this must be why.  The trunk is tattered.  There is a hole in one of the twists of the trunk, I can see right through it to the ground.  There is some type of lichen on the tree, a deep mustard color.  There are holes in the snow around the base of the tree, each holds a single dry leaf.  At the very base of the tree, there is a small patch of earth showing, it's thick with dead grasses.  I'm surprised to see that there is actually two places where young green blades of grass have begun to seek the sun! 

I notice a few strands of horse hair caught on the bark.  There have been mules pastured here at times, and I imagine more than a few of them have sought the shade that this tree provides, or it's made a nice rubbing place for an itchy mane. 

Something's bothering a neighbor...I can hear a squirrel in the closest cluster of pines.  He is chattering away...to warn his community about some possible danger.  I wonder if I'll see something larger, and darker soon in this blue, blue sky. 

Heading home.  A hear a bird, singing.  I'm not sure, it might be a phoebe.   I walk above the place where we tied prayer flags between two shrubs.  I won't visit that place today.  I'm going to walk, alone, with the sun on my face.  I'm going to follow that sweet bird song all the way home.