Beholden

This is the day I write for the mirror – teacher – beloved accomplice.

Barely seeable flakes fall from morning onto each other. No sunrise appears; no color warms the ashen dust. Yet the silence has a striking beauty. It is facilitating the work – the work that must be done alone.

This is the day I lionize the red-winged blackbird – off in his wintering place – a prophet rebuilding.

If it were me to knit this day, I would make a soup and a fire and a lemon cake after a bundled walk into the woods. The woods know how to say it all in the right way. Wood smoke cologne and the clicking of bare branches telegraphing the breeze. A small strange insect crawled out of the onion bag and onto the countertop this morning. I thought, “ yes, this will also do in the blank of winter.” Small things and their power to humble giants.

This is the day I can give like a river – bending for life – water to a desert mouth.

I remember the words about cabins and building a trestle desk. January has a heat more deeply than northern winters suggest. Below the pine, several branch endings have broken off and lie upon fresh snowfall around the trunk. Green tells me what the tree can spare, but winter tells me I will always have everything to give.

This is the day I bow – melodious gratitude – sinking with the sun – nakedness covered in distance.

A zipper caught in my coat; a piano out of tune; a dog with no way to walk. Missionary meets tortured monk meets an unexpected arrival. We wrote the fiction of peace and yet, in the way that only we could, we uncovered and unhinged the narrow gate. This is true. And I am beholden.

This is the day I am glad for birth. Window panes – facing east – sunrise behind the curtains.

Two tin cups of whiskey clink in the northern forest. Cheers to January to winter to you to this to moving on.