Snow Falling Along the Merced River

adapted from Mountains of Light

Snow begins falling while I'm sitting by the river that winds its way through the middle of Yosemite Valley. Birds splashing in the water along its edges don't seem to notice, although some begin to play with a little more excitement. The large flakes quickly change the landscape, covering the rocks and trees, the granite domes and mountains, and unifying everything in a blanket of white. 

My thoughts turn to the Ahwanechee who used to live in this valley. Did Chief Tenaya's people gather inside their shelters during heavy snowstorms to share stories, traditions, and tribal concerns? Or did they go out and play?

Yosemite in Winter

from Mountains of Light

Rising from my sleeping bag, I crawl out of the tent and hike around the frosted meadows. The sun is just peeking over Glacier Point and lights up the bare granite rock of North Dome and the meadow below with a warm yellow glow. In Cook’s Meadow, acorn woodpeckers hop up the trunks of dead trees, picking out acorns they stored there in the fall. By Sentinel Bridge, three young bucks hang out looking for trouble, their breaths coming out in small white puffs. 

The quiet, crystalline beauty of a winter dawn in the mountains fills my eyes, my heart, and my soul with joy.

Invocation of Trees

The trees, now naked of leaves, stand proud in the woods behind my house. They hold their strong bodies against the cold and rise up to the sky, rise up with their arms open in thankfulness to Creation for the year that has been, rise up in reflection and praise.

The birch trees twirl in the breeze with open hands like whirling Sufis, reuniting heaven and earth. The pine and fir trees, heavy with snow, bow their heads and scatter their resinous incense on the air. The oak trees feed acorns to the squirrels who have slept in, and protect nuthatches and wrens with their stout branches. 

Frost

There have been frost warnings the last two days, not that I’ve paid much attention because we did not plant a vegetable garden this year. But the news sank in and I realized this morning, as I looked into the intricate green lace of the woods behind the house, that soon it would all be gone. Half of the leaves have already turned and fallen. One solid freeze and the remaining green would turn yellow overnight. Then, with any kind of wind, all the yellow leaves would drop, leaving the brown and bare trees sticking up on the hill in the sun.

Poet Edward Hirsch spoke of the change of seasons this way:  We suddenly “feel something invisible and weightless. … It is the changing light of fall falling on us.”