#8 decembrance 2020

I have been paying attention to the early signs of December but this week the cold winds have blown in and with early sunsets there is no question of the season. It is such a gift to have my white orchid blooming. Bent over my notebook I may search for the words to describe the wind but there is no need as the echos of the syllables creek through the swaying trees. Tonight in the last light of a circular dog walk up a steep slope I was lost in thought admiring the line of hillside against the sky in fading pink when a honk jolted me awake and to my surprise two swans flew overhead singing like jazz trumpeters.

Utterance

Sitting over words
very late I have heard a kind of whispered sighing
not far
like a night wind in pines or like the sea in the dark
the echo of everything that has ever
been spoken
still spinning its one syllable
between the earth and silence

— W.S. Merwin, from The Rain in the Trees, 1988