Common Birds 58 - Great Blue Heron
Monday, January 22
When I flushed the great blue heron out of the spot where I take pictures of the pond and he likes to sun himself like a house cat, he didn’t bother to go far. The pond was frozen through, so he just landed in the middle of the ice and walked away. I hope he felt as nonchalant as he looked. Unperturbed by the heron’s flight and subsequent saunter, chickadees peeked under the papery birch bark for food.
The river is frozen over, too, the first time I’ve ever witnessed this. I wonder if the mergansers, mallards, and goldeneyes head down to the brackish water by the shore when this happens. While it’s been cold, I’ve been missing the real cold. Lows in the teens are fine, but I miss highs in the teens. I miss the kind of cold that hits you like a wall, freezes your nose, and steals your breath. In Potsdam, New York, where I went to grad school, grew into adulthood, and got married, that kind of brutal cold overwhelmed January. Here, south of the mountains, we’ve only had one day like that in the two years.
I miss the absolute presence of the cold. It cannot be ignored, and you must prepare to meet it. The cold becomes almost the singular fact of existence. Despite my relatively boring habit of writing about birds, I do like extreames. If I’m eating spicy food, I want to weep. I want ideas to be taken to their most radical. When I watch birds, it takes over my whole life. And when it’s cold, I want to feel, to live and move in that freezing, bracing presence. And if you do prepare, the cold has a singular beauty. I’ve seen each trunk, branch, and twig etched with brilliant crystals. I’ve heard my footsteps in the snow echo through the clear air, and the crack of a crow’s wing overhead. Wind sweeps ice into the air where it forms golden halos around the sun, and at night, the dry air reveals the Milky Way, flowing through the frozen darkness.
The problem of evil asks why this world is so full of suffering, randomness, and pain. I want to ask the problem of goodness: why is the world so full of joy, order, and beauty. Even the most ruthless, killing cold cannot help but gild the world with radiance.
…
Watching the heron round a meander, I see my breath become ice in the air as I breathe out a prayer of thanks for the cold.
