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by John

Singing in the dark

On an icy January morning, during my daily pre-dawn walk to the gym, I heard a cardinal singing from high in the branches of a leafless tree. “That’s strange,” I thought. “Spring is still a long way off in Ohio.” This morning, the same cardinal sits singing in that same tree more than two months later as I walk past at 5:30 am. I’m reminded of the mockingbird that would sing through the night in a tree outside our window in Southern Arizona.

Cardinals were known as Virginia Nightingales in eighteenth-century England or Winter Redbirds because of their stark red contrast against white winter snow. Then, and now, they have had a variety of symbolic meanings, have been named state bird in seven US states, and serve as mascots for many sports teams. For me, the bird conveys the sense of a solitary observer, patiently waiting.

I

by John

Daybreak in December

Many mornings are the same:  A hint of light behind the black silhouette of the Catalinas and, higher, Venus suspended brightly in the dark clear sky just before daybreak.  But some mornings are different this December.  One morning the sky behind the still dark mountains seemed cloudless but in the half-light before sunrise it glowed with an almost fluorescent sheen, an amalgam of silver, salmon, champagne and light lavender, suggesting the thin transparent veil of cirrostratus cloud.  There are also the few times altocumulus clouds make their appearance like ploughed fields rippling across the sky, glowing orange, red and pink at sunrise.  This month we had storms rolling in from California.  They brought lenticular clouds, wave crests stacked one upon the other, breaking over the mountain peaks. One morning I was up a little earlier than usual; just after 5:00am.  Standing in the driveway where I had just picked up the morning paper I looked out across the dark sky enjoying the morning stillness before the start of another day, when a meteor, suddenly appeared, tracing a long arc down towards the north-west horizon:  One of the Geminids no doubt, offspring of the 3200 Phaethon Comet but, for me, a shooting star, a spark of the divine.

by John

A Meeting

I once asked our nine-year-old granddaughter what she most liked about her visits to Tucson. She replied unhesitatingly that it was the night she, Lil and I sat cuddled together under a blanket on the back patio and watched the moon rise over the Catalina mountains. It was dark and cold. We sat looking into the blackness until a faint profile of the mountains slowly started to appear, and then a silvery glow began to emerge behind Mount Lemon. It grew brighter and brighter until the silver flash of the upmost curve of the moon exploded over the peak of the mountains. We watched in silent awe as the moon rose into the sky in its full splendor.

And I remember the poem written by my Aunt, Katherine Woodman

IS THIS WHERE WE MEET

Is this where we meet, John Moon
In a frozen night when old snows
Thinly cover the brown land?
Our glances flit through fir trees,
Tall bare trunks; you brush my cheek
Reaching lightly over my shoulder,
Then swing around in the sky
Till we meet face flooding face.
So we ride through the night, John Moon,
Finding no particular reason
For such unexpected mating
In this cold season.