December 2008

Out before dawn, I hear the crunch of boots up in the woods. It stops. All over the mountain, hunters are sitting silently in the trees.

It doesn’t take a hard wind to get the trees talking, merely the right wind. A nuthatch’s nasal commentary. The whistling of doves’ wings.

A half-hour before dawn, the stars begin to lose their luster—always a more melancholy thing than a sunset to me. The wind picks up.