24th January 2008
The drama of the night is the moon, a night after full, navigating high, with gale tattered clouds mottling its surface. Several times gusts waken me & the moon is still there, as large an appearance in the night as truth retained from dream. The booming in the house has fooled me a few times, too, thinking that someone is banging the door to get in. At one point I’m at the front to make sure that the gate is shut & it isn’t the flock looking for shelter.
The morning dawns on blizzards, with a full & high tide; white is everywhere. The sun makes brief guest appearances, but with the force of the wind, the clouds are driven in again, blackening the very brief clear spells. By mid morning, growling thunder has stepped up its volume & is now exploding round the hills. When the sky’s at its darkest, hail rattles the small branches & topmost twigs, battering on down, stinging noses & muzzles alike.
The day moves on, with curtains rising & falling on weather scenes. The woods, usually noisy with bird calls, a twittering of chaffinches, is silent. The bay & sea & skerries, normally full of noisy oystercatchers & burbling curlews, is silent. Bare bones of trees make grinding noises against each other in high wind. Only a pair of buffeted siskins moves, low down, fossicking for seeds, flighting close to the ground as I approach.
The drama of the night is the moon, a night after full, navigating high, with gale tattered clouds mottling its surface. Several times gusts waken me & the moon is still there, as large an appearance in the night as truth retained from dream. The booming in the house has fooled me a few times, too, thinking that someone is banging the door to get in. At one point I’m at the front to make sure that the gate is shut & it isn’t the flock looking for shelter.
The morning dawns on blizzards, with a full & high tide; white is everywhere. The sun makes brief guest appearances, but with the force of the wind, the clouds are driven in again, blackening the very brief clear spells. By mid morning, growling thunder has stepped up its volume & is now exploding round the hills. When the sky’s at its darkest, hail rattles the small branches & topmost twigs, battering on down, stinging noses & muzzles alike.
The day moves on, with curtains rising & falling on weather scenes. The woods, usually noisy with bird calls, a twittering of chaffinches, is silent. The bay & sea & skerries, normally full of noisy oystercatchers & burbling curlews, is silent. Bare bones of trees make grinding noises against each other in high wind. Only a pair of buffeted siskins moves, low down, fossicking for seeds, flighting close to the ground as I approach.
Hazel catkins seem to fold on themselves in the cold. Only the rhododendrons, those natives of Spain & Lebanon, with their spurts of growth since I last passed here & with their new terminal buds, seem aware of a spring that might arrive one day soon.
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