WINTER REFLECTIONS 2011
Contributions from the woman’Space Community


winterbird

Emperors of Dawn
-Sandy Ashby-

My footfalls echo amid thin winter branches wrapped in pink
—Intruder in this sleepy landscape.
The streetlights have snuffed out
but the silent fountain
and still cascade
wait in shadow by the clock-tower for the coming of the morning’s rush.
For now, though, this garden walkway
belongs to the squirrels,
the emperors of dawn.

At my approach they scatter,
pausing in their game of feint and chase,
wary but not worried,
withdrawing to a distance merely discreet,
almost safe.
I pass, head bowed, as not to disturb their secret sunrise rituals.
Eyes narrowed, they watch me as I pass.
Soon enough, the walk will teem with humans— scurrying, hurrying, chattering, scattering— and these tiny morning worshippers
will recede to mutter their incantations in seclusion.
But in the early morning chill as this world sleeps on I can hear only
the wind, the lonely footsteps
and the skitter of squirrels.

ccsnowpic

Winter Walk - January 13, 2009
-Sue Stolze-

I meet God at Creve Coeur Park this morning.
(We don’t have an appointment; is it coincidence?)

At dawn, the bright white light of the setting three-quarters moon is beaming in its glorious, geometric imperfection; while in the East, the palette is gray, blue, buff.

A star fades—soon to be seen only by the eye of faith.

Warm in my cozy parka, I spare a moment of compassion for the naked trees who must wait for Spring to be clothed.
Still, they continue to lift their many arms in cursive calligraphy against the lightening sky, constant in their worship. (Thank you, trees.)

The shiny lake waters lap against the broken-glass ice at the shore.
Thousands of gulls wheel above, landing in swarming community and leaving again.

A new palette in the East—rose and gold highlights are appearing as this spot of Earth turns Sunward.

A perfect line of geese cuts the sky, orderly and graceful.
Other, smaller, earthier birds are hiding and seeking and peeping now.

A sister walker passes.
We share appreciation of the morning’s beauty.

I will not remember this perfect moment perfectly.
No matter. I enjoy the Company now.


snowriver

Cottonwood Dreams
January 23, 2011
-Wendy Sarno-

In this crystal day beside the cottonwood
I press my soul’s roots into the river.
Feeding dreams to the beaver.

There along the Meramec River where it makes a wide turn south thru the valley, the water was rimmed with ice and the long thin tracks the deer make in the snow. I could see where they came to drink at the low water, today so blue from the piercing winter sky.

I’d walked a ways up the snowy trail into the deeper woods where there were prints of human boots and the impress of dog feet, notes left from happy winter wanders in the fresh snowfall now two days old. And crisscrossing the human trail again and again, the narrow prints of the deer. A wood pecker someplace commented on the day. The tall legs of the bare trees leaned toward the dry creek bed where I’ve wandered on warmer days looking for stones now buried in white. I come here in all seasons, to this little pocket of wildness preserved at the noisy intersection of two busy highways. I wander the dirt paths, greet the occasional deer, listen for birds, name the wildflowers, browse the stones along the nameless creek.

Today I am called to the river where I have come at low water and at flood to stand in silence next to the flowing current usually slow and brown with Missouri silt. Here great cottonwoods grow along the bank with their broad ridged plates of thick bark and reach their heavy branches out over the river. They are fat and old with roots deep in the wet bottoms, the trunks two or three feet in diameter. I find the beaver have been here chewing on this favored of foods. Within a stretch of thirty feet or so, for or five trees have been gnawed deeply with the sharp determined teeth of the beaver. Cottonwoods, so named for their soft flesh, offering a winter’s feast. I run my fingers over the ridges of tooth marks in the wood thinking of the lives of our furred creatures thru these cold seasons. I touch the thick bark wondering what this will do to the trees.

snowtree
I stand for a long time pondering our interrelatedness here where the river flows thru the valley rising and falling in season past the network of highways, where the woodland grows under the constant roar of traffic, with its web of trails and streams, habitat for deer, coyote, raccoon, possum, a myriad of song birds, hawk and owl, always the turkey vulture, and now I know, the beaver. A small wilderness bordered by asphalt and engines. Not far away the defunct Chrysler plant that fills so much of this valley sits empty, up for sale. I sense the quiet sleep of the winter woods and wonder what this place makes of all the roar at its borders, and what the pollution in the air and the vibrations in the earth do to its fruiting, nesting life?

This Saturday I’m grateful for the sun and the silver ice flashing along the blue river. I’m grateful for the faithful trees and this wildish corner in an overpopulated, over worked human world. I’m grateful for those who had sense and vision enough to preserve it and clear the trails for such as I to wander thru. I’m grateful to the beaver for living their determined lives at the edge of human society, and I pray the great cottonwoods will survive them. I pray for the Meramec River as it flows out of the Ozarks into the southward channel of the Mississippi into the gulf where the oil rigs sit waiting.

Its little places like this, preserved patches of wildness, that keep us close to our own wild nature and in so doing offer healing to body and soul. I pray for the children who will come here thru the years learning to know themselves part of their native land.

In this crystal day along the water I can push my own soul’s roots deep in the earth. I can feed dreams to the beaver. I go home restored to something more alive and more ancient than all of us.