mornings

 

Now, I wake up early and straightaway pick up poop off my living room floor, and then I make a mug of steaming tea or coffee (depending on how much sleep I've gotten) and walk out into the frozen morning. I wear my big rubber boots and Goretex shell and I walk up the big grassy field, then through the brushy, thorny field and into the pine woods, snow crunching underfoot. The dogs stay close by, looking up at me for direction, their eyebrows raised. Pilar is docile and timid, with eyes like liquid honey. She looks like a black, silky-coated retriever. Roxy, a sweet little hound mix, is unafraid. They trot by my heels, not wanting to let me out of their sight in this strange, snowy place where they've suddenly found themselves after a long trip from South Carolina. We rove over fields and woods that are ever more ravaged by some unseen saw. Grouse rise up flustered in front of us, chickadees chase each other in the low pines, and the sun, depending on the day, gradually lightens the gray sky or burns off the clouds and bursts through the trees, and the church bell in the distant village tolls eight times.