I want everything that I observe to be connected to something else, to hold some kind of significance. I want to know how things will turn out, what will happen. But maybe it’s easier than that; meaning is simple: what you see is what you get.

Daybook, December 19, 2009

EPHEMERIS FOR THE THIRD WEEK OF DEEP WINTER
The Eighth Week Of The Natural Year
When The Last Honeysuckle and Bittersweet Berries Disappear

Since December 2, the day on which sunset reached its earliest time, the year has slowly become brighter, the sun leading the village through the end of Late Fall, through the season of Early Winter (December 8 – 31) and the first three weeks of Deep Winter (January 1 – 26). On January 11, sunrise here began to occur earlier for the first time since the middle of June; the sunset now is 24 minutes later than it was when the natural year began, and the Tufted Titmouse Moon became the Skunk Cabbage Moon today at 2:11 a.m., promising the first flowers in the wetlands.

DECEMBER VOYEUR
December 19, 1986: Geese continue to fly over town, have let up only a little since Middle Fall.

December 19, 1988: South Glen: A hard southwest wind moaning and warm, geese flying back and forth, broken stratus clouds tousled, white and gray, low and fast, sparrows swarming in the aster seeds; then I almost stumbled over two people, naked, making love in the dead goldenrod. I saw clothes, coats, thrown across the field, knees akimbo. The couple paid me no attention, and I turned quickly away, walked on, somehow renewed, more optimistic than I’d been before.

December 19, 1989: Goldenrod seeds about three-fourths gone.

December 19, 1990: The sparrows are quiet, waiting as I come to take the bird feeder inside to fill. When I go back out and hang it in the tree, the cry goes up, wild chirping.

December 19, 1992: The crows were still flying east or northeast along the freeway today. This flock must have reached at least three or four miles.

December 19, 1997: Delicate new blue growth noticed on the junipers by the pond; it must have started in October or November.

December 19, 1999: The koi have finally settled in for winter now, passive as I clean out the pump, unafraid with the slow peace of hibernation.

December 19, 2001: This morning as I was working outside fixing the kitchen table in the sun, a black housefly came and lit on the wooden beside me.

December 19, 2008: Looking back over the daybook journal, I wonder what happened to the couple I discovered making love in the field at South Glen back on this day twenty years ago. Do they remember the day like I do? Did they get married, have children? Are they happy? Has their ritual been as durable as mine? December voyeur, I want everything that I observe to be connected to something else, to hold some kind of significance. I want to know how things will turn out, what will happen. But maybe it’s easier than that; meaning is simple: what you see is what you get.

December 19, 2009: The first snow of the year covered all the branches this morning, showing off the daffodil spears that had grown up in the warm November.  A screech owl was calling softly at 7:00. A small flock of cowbirds joined the sparrows and cardinals at the feeders today.