Transition

There is an unmistakable chill of winter
in the air. The palpable fragrance of
impending snow reminds us of what is yet
to come. The urgent wind sends its icy
fingers piercing our fall jackets as we forge
through piled dry leaves and needles.
Where last night's rain pounded the hillsides,
the trails, shorn of detritus washed down to
the valleys, are slick with the clay that comprises
the soil here; now dissolved into rank muck.

Above, a crow familiar with our presence
glides from tree to tree, observing our
progress. Keenly involved in assessing our
purpose this day, he hovers, trailing us. The
anxious activities of squirrels awaiting our
passage informs the cerebral curiosity of the
black-winged sentry. Redpolls and chickadees
emit their syncopated chorus as they flick
into the thickly-needled hemlocks and spruces.

There is a huge crack reporting above the
din of the wind and clatter of tree tops. We
view the slow-motion disintegration of a
desiccated tree trunk, its rotted carcass incapable
of offering further resistance to the season's raw
primal elements, concerned with reducing living
nature to the compost that nurtures new life in
the never-ending cycle of passage and renewal.