Observation

The Moon wasn’t quite full yet when the coyotes’ yips and yowls tore through the night. I had been standing on the stoop, lost in a book of trashy deliciousness when I heard the first yelping cry. My head jerked up hard enough to actually hurt my poor neck muscles, and chills shivered down my spine as the rapidly swelling chorus of coyote song filled the night. Just for a moment, every nasty story I had ever heard of rabid dogs, vicious wolves, opportunistic coyotes filled my mind, and I searched the darkness for red eyes and dripping fangs. Then, thankfully, good sense returned. I was able to enjoy the beauty of the song in the night, and smile at the tortured howling and barking coming from the neighborhood dogs. The poor things were locked up… chained up… restrained… and here their wild cousins were stalking freely through territory clearly marked by these tame man-friends. The indignity. The horror. The fear… and, I imagine, the jealously in the hearts of some of those dogs.
A few nights later, an owl visited me. I could hear the deep-throated who-o-o, but was unable to pick out the shape of my midnight visitor no matter how I strained my eyes in the moonlight. Owl stayed for quite a while, always calling out whenever I tried to lose myself in my book. I imagined my friend owl as the jealous sort, not liking the thought that I found anything more interesting than watching the moon-shadows in hopes of catching a glimpse of him/her.

Last night, the full moon was supposed to be an amazing sight. All week I looked forward to the sight of a moon brighter and nearer than I have seen it in many years. Instead, I was treated to the first rainstorm of the year. March, and rain. It fell in heavy sheets, pounding into the house and pushing away the snowdrifts still piled everywhere in the yard. As the driveway began to fill with water, I began to pray that the temps wouldn’t drop too much before morning. I didn’t like the idea of all that water freezing into sheets of glass-slick ice, making driving dangerous and possibly trapping me at work.

Spring is slowly creeping its way into my little corner of the world. I have now seen north-bound geese, and there are more birds raising their voices to greet the dawn every day. Each tree is surrounded with a circle of bare earth, and I find that little bit of muddy brown is a very welcome sight after months of white-white-white-every-where-you-look-it’s-nothing-but-white. I can feel the earth waiting… waiting for the sun to melt the snow just a little bit more, for the warmth to reach just a little deeper into the soil. I can feel spring waiting to burst forth in all it’s glory. I can feel myself ready to burst forth with all my glory. I am aching to get my hands into sun warmed soil; to smell the damp, freshly turned earth; to sit in the evening and watch the birds and squirrels play in the yard. I soak up the warm breezes, and turn my face to the sun.