With its back to the rising morning light, a hawk settled onto a utility wire above the road to Lazy Point. Tuesday was the coldest morning of the fall so far, and the hawk was in no haste to get about its day. It peered over a shoulder, indifferent to the smaller animals that might be creeping through the understory. Only a truck that rumbled below roused it from its perch.
Laid up with a stomach bug for the past several days, I have had a lot of time to watch what is going on outside. Deer are here at dawn and dusk — five of them emerged yesterday evening from the reeds across the street coated from their hooves to their chests with mud. They ran back across the dreen when I opened the house door to go get something from the car; I could hear their splashing well after they had disappeared from view.
The shorter days of this time of year bring the fine, thin light of sunrise and sunset closer together. Morning begins with a gray wash of color that turns more or less orange; later, it reverses, bringing the subtle differences among the native grasses briefly into a sharper contrast. Afternoon light fades to a porcelain sky. Then it is night again, the stars like flecks from a shattered vase on a dark floor. I don’t hear the owl that had kept me company before the weeks got cold, but perhaps it is only that the sound of the wind obscures its call.
This forced rest, which has kept me in one room for most of the week, has been a time to take stock. From my window I see the season’s first snowfall. These have been quiet days, welcome, in a way. There are old plans to revisit, new ones to make. I slow down. I observe. I have time; there are the changing colors over the marsh to see.