Winter claims the valley piece by piece.
First to go were autumn’s bright leaves. Those that once carpeted the December lawn now huddle against bare bushes or gather in hushed hollows, exposing secrets – browning grass, black mud, roots twisted like forgotten script. The forest stands stripped to essentials. Only the patient evergreens keep their watch – dark pine, waxy holly, feathered cypress, and bamboo’s green whisper against gray sky.
Beneath empty branches, summer’s wild abundance has withdrawn to root and seed. Dead stalks of Snakeroot weed and Wineberry rise like the broken stems of summer’s bouquet. Here and there, water running down steep slopes has carved away soil to expose the valley’s bones – slate and schist shouldering through dense clay earth.
These shortened days balance on the edge of change. Morning frost rims each blade of grass in crystal, yet the afternoon sun still warms the ground enough to draw late robins. They work the soft earth with quiet determination, devouring lethargic earthworms before the ground turns hard as stone. Each thrust of beak, each cocked head searching, each flutter between feeding spots speaks of the nearing migration.
Their ancient movements paint a truth as clear as the tracks they leave in the chilled mud – everything changes, everything moves, everything remains.