An Urban Winter Wilderness

At the edge of a large city, with only a quick refocus of the eyes, a person can be in the midst of a pocket-sized wilderness.

Down among the grassroots is a world of tiny insects and plants. Up in the tree branches the struggle for life goes on--the tree's life and the lives of its many inhabitants.

With luck and a bit of skill, one can capture the foraging bee near its food, or the itinerant cloud, apparently caught on the tall tree's bare twigs. January, even in the mildness of a thaw, is most likely too far into winter for seeing bees. But it has abounded, lately, in views of clouds. All awaiting the interest of the digital camera wielder.

Yesterday I looked up at the surviving clusters of leaves on the large maple in my front yard, their lobed silhouettes showing an occasional warm russet in the freshening wind. And behind them, seemingly close enough to touch, the moving layers of gray clouds.



For a moment I felt as if I were at the bottom of some strange, clear sea. And at my feet, tangled in the shiny green forms on this alien sea-floor, miniature sea anemones in fading purple, blurred by the racing currents.

Hanging on, through freezing temperatures that alternated with heavy rainstorms, these were the tiny wild aster blossoms, withered but lovely on their stems that poked up through the prone leaves of the spreading honeysuckle vines.



In actuality, we do live at the bottom of an ocean of air, and we process it through our bodies as surely as the fish move the sea water through their gills. It is our habitat.

And, to borrow the words of Al Gore, that is surely, at times, an inconvenient truth. But the sky transmutes into visual beauty whatever we upload into it, and if we're lucky, we may yet survive the residue when it inevitably rains back down upon us.

Labels: Winter Musings