After the Storm

Quiet has returned to the forest, the cold night a pool of stilled air, the trees floating as though suspended from the clouds, a few stars emerging now and then but never in full constellations. Or maybe it is that the clouds seem like the bottom of the pool, faintly stirred by deep currents, and the trees are suspended from the earth, hanging toward the stars that are like bright flecks of metal underwater. It is a curious inversion such as I might experience in a dream, but it emerges while I wake, induced perhaps by hours as utterly placid as sleep. Once, the calm was broken by a pair of bickering raccoons who set the dogs to barking. Later, an owl emitted a single screech which echoed into oblivion, leaving the silence more dense than ever, and the chill deeper. Those events, too, seem like passages in a dream. I try to cling to the sense of unreality but, like the dreams it so resembles, it slips away, leaving me unable to quite describe it. I wonder if, when I sleep, I will see myself walking the everyday world, engaged in commonplace tasks? I wouldn't feel surprise. The odd things my brain does have ceased to amaze me.

Light

A patch of sunlight illuminates a fuzzy blue blanket, providing a warm spot in which my cat now naps luxuriantly. The blanket is as blue as the freshly laundered sky, and as fluffy as the white clouds floating there. The pines thrust into light, delving roots tapping damp earth, drawing new moisture which aspires to their swaying topmost needles, as though to return to that breezy realm from which it recently descended. The sunlight reveals that the mulberry tree has developed the tiny buds which will soon bring forth spring's tiny translucent leaves which will soak up the light and convert it to summer's dense canopy. For now, the tangle of thin twigs and branches allow most of that light to pass and fall on the camellias that kindle in the welcome glow. The air remains crisp, but is scented with new growth and resonates with bird songs. There are fleet crows, too, flashing past and emitting exuberant caws. One lands atop a pine and sways there, the shining black tip of a metronome slowly measuring the serene passage of afternoon.