Zero

This morning before dawn it’s zero degrees out.  

Zero, as if there was no temperature outside. Nothing is moving, no animals or birds, not even the wind. I stand motionless not wanting to ruffle the stillness holding the world.




The frozen sun rises pink on the horizon, shifts to light canary yellow that fades as the sun warms the air to eight degrees. 

Hidden in the stiff, unmoving trees, the unseen longing of leaves is tucked deep inside the wood waiting for spring. Beneath the snow, mice, voles and woodchucks sleep.  

A cardinal comes to the feeder of black sunflower seeds, his brilliant red feathers bright against the white background. Wrens flitter in, then chickadees, and a Downey woodpecker. The birds bring soft chattering to the brittle forest.

Squirrels emerge from their hidden nests, knock snow off the tops of branches that drifts to the ground and sparkles in the crisp sunlight.

Zero is also the door between the living and the dead. A synapse. Which way will this day turn? Some things will die today. What will be born?

I look for a sign, as if this stunning scenery isn’t enough, and listen for words whispered by the snow or woods, some transcendent message attached to this vision that I can carry with me. But I think this is it. The message today is THIS. I only exist in THIS moment. If I fail to notice it, it ceases to exist and disappears. But if I pay attention to it, then it becomes a reality, a presence that becomes part of me.

Sometimes transcendence surrounds me with such beauty that I don’t want to breathe for fear of disturbing it. Sometimes it is small, like discovering, when it is light enough to see, the footprints of a bird in the snow beside me.

(It's Aldo Leopold's birthday today.)