"He disappeared in the dead of winter: 

The brooks were frozen, the airports 

almost deserted, And snow disfigured 

the public statues; The mercury sank in 

the mouth of the dying day. What instruments 

we have agree The day of his death was a 

dark cold day.

 Far from his illness The wolves ran on through 

the evergreen forests, The peasant river was 

untempted by the fashionable quays; By 

mourning tongues The death of the poet 

was kept from his poems" 

                   from  In Memory of W. B. Yeats

            W. H. Auden

Today as we took our long suffering dogs for their

walk I noticed bird calls from the spruce in front of

the house. Normally I post pictures of birds in the

spruce taken from our front window so I was happy

I had taken my camera with the chance at something 

different. Upon seeing this was a mixed flock

feeding at the top of the spruce I began snapping 

wildly and Helen graciously left me to it while

she was pulled around the block by two small white 

dogs. On November 24th I posted shots of a flock

of Red Crossbills and Red Breasted Nuthatches. This

flock contained Red Crossbills, White Winged 

Crossbills and Red Polls. It was great to see them

right outside our door, now I can think of them perched

there sheltering from the cold night air while I lay in bed.

( even if they are actually miles away )

The photos are not quite as good as the Nov

photos, our spruce is taller and today was overcast.

   

Lately I have been somewhat depressed by

the news I read and despite Robert Burton's 

warning about melancholy it is hard not to get 

caught up in it. While many people still seem 

to be in the rather childish stage of blaming

everyone but themselves for the broken vase, 

indeed they are still arguing about whether the vase 

( planet )  is broken, it is obvious that things are

changing. In Canada we have always taken a perverse

pride in our cold weather. Compared to the disasters taking

place around the world getting warmer is good. Except

that new pests will move north. Melting permafrost will 

disrupt communities and change the landscape. Insects that 

normally freeze will over winter, increase and spread. 

Climate changes and many animals will not adapt. A warmer 

north will open the Northwest passage to shipping and the tundra 

to increasing resource exploitation. I see no signs that we will 

distribute this new wealth more equitably  or extract it more 

responsibly than we did in the past. We will simply repeat the 

excesses and mistakes of the past, just as Auden said "For 

poetry makes nothing happen" ( In Memory of W. B. Yeats ) 

we seem to learn nothing from the lessons of history.

Possibly it is a universal that everyone, as they age sees 

the world they knew, believed existed,  (even if only in a 

somewhat romanticized world view), chance into something 

they barely recognize. To be realistic in many cases these 

changes are good. But still there are so many other things 

that are lost along the way.

Perhaps that is why I can still cherish the poems that mark 

the changing seasons by the calls of geese passing overhead 

a sound I can still hear today. And perhaps that is why tonight 

I will pretend that I can hear the drowsy cheep and muted rustling 

of the birds sheltering against the cold in the spruce at my front door.

"Then one day I was walking along Tinker Creek thinking 

of nothing at all and I saw the tree with lights in it. I saw 

the backyard cedar where. the mourning doves roost 

charged and transfigured, each cell buzzing with flame. 

I stood on the grass with the lights in it, grass that was 

wholly fire, utterly focused and utterly dreamed. 

It was less like seeing than like being for the first time seen, 

knocked breathless by a powerful glance"

    from Pilgrim at Tinkers Creek

     Annie Dillard