November 19: Deep sleep

Overslept this morning because the sound of the alarm didn't penetrate my consciousness for half an hour. I must have been really tired last night.

Alarm finally off,
cat rushes in, joyous
to find me awake, alive.

November 18: Camels Hump

Driving south from Burlington on I-89 this frosty morning, Camels Hump, the second highest peak in the Green Mountains, rose misty blue before me. This familiar peak is so distinctive, and it was so beautiful, that I almost swerved off the road every time it came into view.
 
Misty blue peaks--
so clear, my memories
of hiking there.

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November 17: Jupiter again

Step out of a Burlington restaurant into the frigid air coming off the lake, reminding me of nights when I was a college student in Vermont. We shiver and rush to the car, while above the streetlights and traffic lights, there's Jupiter again, just like at home.
 
Even here in the past
amid different mountains,
Jupiter looks down on me.

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November 16: Frost and fog

Wake in the guest bedroom of a friend to a foggy dawn, only the frosty lawn visible. Later, the mist lifted to reveal a forest of hoar-frosted trees, a landscape defined by white.
 
I wake with a clear mind
to the dream-like world
of fog and frost.

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November 15: Pigeons

While driving to Vermont this afternoon, noticed fat pigeons perched along one wire among several crossing above the highway like lines on a sheet of music...
 
Pigeons on a wire:
Monotonous notes
of a musical score.

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November 14: Lights out

Leaving a friend's studio tonight, the porch light was out. And the two streetlights facing her building were out. With the new moon, the street seemed profoundly dark. It wasn't until I got to my car that I could see the sky was clear and starry above the roofs, and there, right above my car, shining Jupiter.

Night street so dark
only a planet shines,
too distant to light my way.

November 13: New Moon

The new moon must be exerting its dark power on this bleak afternoon, when energy ebbs and dusk falls long before the work day's ended. Satisfied with what I got accomplished today and buoyed by rich chocolate pound cake from Megunticook Market, my own spirits are high despite the weather. But I look out the window and think of a friend who's going through a rough time right now in a relationship, and can well imagine how this landscape must seem to echo her mood.

Rain, tangled branches.
A heartsick woman
holds in her tears.

November 12: Blue birds, bleak sky

The other night I dreamt I saw three bluebirds together on a branch. Then I saw them in real life.

Yesterday I indulged in birding for the entire day, moving around the Midcoast to some of my favorite spots. I started off by spending several hours on Beech Hill, hiking all the trails, scanning fields and woods along the way. But the highlight of that outing was at the very beginning, when I was walking alongside the first, lower blueberry field. It was mown recently, and that seemed to have attracted a flock of bluebirds. The strikingly bright birds were foraging in the field, perching in trees in small clusters together along its edge, and even singing. On a bleak November morning with a frost-white sky, posed on leafless branches and amid sere, cropped blueberry plants, the bluebirds were easily the most vivid aspects of the landscape. I watched them for a long time, and when I finally looked away and continued on up the hill, I could hear their songs echoing behind me.

Even more beautiful
than birds in a dream--
bluebirds on bleak barrens.

November 11: Moth

To make the most of yesterday's sunlight and relative warmth, and hopefully find some interesting birds (winter finches are arriving all over Maine now), I spent a couple of hours walking around my neighborhood, binoculars around my neck. I ended my outing in the cemetery just a couple of blocks away from home at the base of Mount Battie. The sinking sun cast a pink glow on the craggy west-facing talus slope of Mount Battie and gave added definition to the headstones.

I've always enjoyed walking around cemeteries--for the quiet, for the glimpse into a community's history, for the variety of inscriptions and engravings on the stones. Cemeteries are poignant places, orderly reminders of the ever-present fact of mortality. This cemetery in particular has meaning for me because some of my own family are buried here: my grandfather, great-grandparents, and a great-uncle.   

So it was in a pensive state of mind that I wandered the neat rows of headstones as the shadows lengthened. I paused in front of one old stone to read a moving inscription, something along the lines of, "Here all our hopes lie lost." That's when something weird happened. A little brown moth fluttered by. As I wondered if it might be one of those winter species that tolerates cold weather, it headed right toward me and fluttered against my lips. It fluttered there for so long, several seconds, that I eventually had to brush it away. 

Kissed by a moth. In a cemetery. Hard not to read some deeper meaning into that--a visitation from a soul wandering loose among the stones, some sort of reminder to cultivate silence... But the rational side of my brain wants to tell me that the moth was undoubtedly just drawn to something mundane like the heat of my breath or the carbon dioxide of my exhalations. 

Moth's fluttery kiss--

a restless spirit

or my honey lip balm?

Postscript: Poetic license aside, I wasn't actually wearing any lip balm...

November 10: Skyfall

Last night we watched "Skyfall," the new James Bond movie. My husband and I are huge 007 fans, particularly of the Daniel Craig portrayal, and have been anticipating this one for a while. It was all one  might want in a Bond movie; we loved it.

As we drove home, still feeling the after-effects of witnessing all that testosterone in action--the chases, fights, seductions, and explosions--I looked out the car window to see a clear night sky full of stars (and one planet).

Jupiter high and bright
over Orion the Hunter.
James Bond kicks ass.

November 9: At the bank

Funny the places where we're suddenly struck with happiness. Today, waiting at the bank, having just engaged in a friendly conversation about geese with a bank employee I know, I hear a song I like playing over the sound system. I'm just standing there, smiling, waiting for the teller to finish the deposits. And it hits me: in this moment, right now, I'm happy.

Touchstone for joy
closer than we realize.
Radio song. Bird's flight.