After Solstice
The first winter night after December 21st
comes with a promise of longer days and
shorter nights, yet the yard is pitch black
by seven. Winter is the season for waiting,
for accepting how things come in their own
time without consideration for our impatience.
We’ve heard the soft rounded sounds of
hoots in the small forest behind the house,
delighted by the presence of owl, a sentry
in the trees, a magical figure in our hopelessly
storybooked minds. Tonight we mute the TV,
listen again for the volley of short screams,
urgent and piercing. We sift through a
catalog of sounds online: fox and fisher cat
and raccoon, and determine our first
guess is right. Fox. Standing at the back
door, letting cold into the house, we record
the cries on our phones, and look up why
do fox scream? Theories are territory disputes,
or mating calls, but what if it is just a voice
seeking its own kind? What I have found
with you, standing beside me, whispering
as we listen to the fox. That you notice
how dusk turns the sky peach, and when
the leaves start to turn, and how, together,
we give attention to sounds in the yard late
at night, lending us their wild language.
