The frosty day won out

Friday evening I went out to take down the birdfeeders for the night. At that time the temperature was about 60 degrees and it was humid. Jerry and I had been out walking around 3:30 that afternoon and we felt overdressed in our hoodies. It was hot. It was December 31^st and it was uncomfortably warm. Saturday it rained all day but by late evening the rain had stopped, snow was a “might happen”; we got none of it. Sunday the wind chill was 7 degrees. This morning it was around 6 degrees, beautifully clear and when the sun rose the birds were in party mode. I spent some extra time getting the feeders out, placing peanuts in trees and on the deck, spreading some seeds at ground level, hanging another suet feeder, watching the gathering in the trees. The frosty day won out, I had to retreat. And I think the forsythia was a bit jealous at the attention I was giving the birds, just look what it did when I tried to get a picture of the Tufted Titmouse:

Here now a winter poem from another time.

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The hoarfrost blooms a thousand
ways across the andesite and juniper
stumps rise from the glacier that had been
my pasture. Beneath the drifts, small
animals are moving now, feet as soft
as wings If I look up, there are ten late stars
almost burning into oblivion, two eagles
spiraling in the chill.

At the pine, poised with one slight foot
raised, a doe, and last year’s twins,
wait for me to turn back toward
the house. New grass, covered in rime,
gray to dawn, will melt soon under the deer’s breath.
By the end of the day, their hoof prints
will become the only mark of this other life.