Drawn Towards a Communion

Simply gorgeous day.  I watched it slowly arrive across to the Shawangunk’s.  We’re beneath a hill that blocks the sun's rise, but I can see its progression as we stare out to the west, as the sun lights up the cliff face.  I keep texting my mother.  I’m annoying her on purpose.  It’s the second day of my bird feeder and there are still no birds.  My stepfather, who she liaises with as I text, suggests I’m an impatient naturalist. 

Robotically, I dress for the cold with long johns and a thermal underwear top and a hoodie and gloves and a big wool vest.  It’s warm outside.  I realize this when I finally step out there into the garage and wheel the bike in to the drive way.  Stripped down, I returned back in a moment with just the tee-shirt and the hoodie. Now guide the bike down the steep incline in the back, into the woods and onto the trail. 

Another modernist composer for today; I don’t think I have ever listened to the music of Charles Ives before. Born in Danbury Connecticut, not Vienna nor St. Petersburg.  That’s interesting. Frank Zappa was apparently a fan and that’s unexpected.  His work was largely ignored during his life time, that melancholy fact makes me more curious than I might otherwise have been.  I imagine I can hear something “American” in this “Piano Sonata No. 2.”  Some blues?  Some ragtime?  Some John Philip Souza, who was twenty years, his senior?

I bike south towards Gardiner.  There are a good number of people out on the trail, for the middle of the day, in the middle of the week.  Everyone is drawn towards a communion with the weather, while it is still here.  Returning I can’t help but stop at a collection of what I assume are birch trees, screaming aflame, in commanding gold and right beside is a stripped maple that offers a wonderful contrast beside them in red.  I snap photos for a while with my phone and then move on along the trail.

Wednesday 10/23/19