January 30, 2010

Late January. I walk the forest as if for the first time. Underfoot the trails are mostly hard-packed mud overlain with broken twigs. Last year's leaves have been kicked to each side, elongate brown mounds framing my steps.

I walk, head down, listening, looking. If this were the first time I walked here I would see a landscape of green and brown and grey, somber, a nun's habit. I would hear the leaf blowers growling in the western neighborhoods, local dogs barking, airplanes delivering their passengers to the airport just to the south and west.

But I have walked these paths for years, and I know where to look. The first Hazlenut catkins appear in the bright place on the edge of the southern meadows. In a week or two the slightest touch will scatter their pollen in every direction and I will wheeze and happily grab for my inhaler.

Winter Wren sings for the first time this season, an operatic trill that belies his size. I "pssh" in response and he hops from under a Sword Fern to face me, scolding. Above us a pair of Bald Eagles copulate. Noisily.

Winter is over.

Photos copyright 2010, C. M. Alexander

January 27, 2010

My daughter and her husband live in Los Angeles. I visit them three or four times a year. Grudgingly, I've found myself looking forward to my visits, praising the landscape there. Its fragrance is sharp, resinous - palm and live oak, an understory of grey xeriscape. I have fallen in love with its textures, its sky, its bright winter light, all foreign to the forest here.

It has become so sweet to be there, and so good to return.


Photo copyright 2010, C. M. Alexander

January 10, 2010

A prayer for the forest, quiet now in mid winter but revealing new life for those who choose to see. For the winter ducks resting briefly in the bay before moving on; for the other birds who stay the winter. For the grace of rain and pale grey light, for the smell of soil and rotten leaves, for the low resonant voice of Great Horned Owl and the bright scold of Winter Wren.

For those who advocate with me to keep the forest wild. This year I pray for the words that will allow me to speak for this place, and the courage to speak those words in the right time and the right place.

Photo copyright 2010, C. M. Alexander

January 8, 2010

Last summer's bracken fronds hang, faded in grey light.



The air is wet; it beads in my hair, drips along my nose, brings me the fragrance of soil, of rotten leaves, of flocks of winter ducks resting in the bay.

Photo copyright 2010, C. M. Alexander

January 5, 2010

Cloud came down to meet the forest today. The top of the eldest Douglas Fir was invisible from the forest floor, and yet so present.

Bald Eagle voices, courting.

January 3, 2010

Four Tundra Swans graced the bay early yesterday morning. They seldom visit, and I was glad to see them on the second day of this new decade.

Today they are gone.

Godspeed.