This December Snow
Sunday, December 1, 2019
We had a bit of a blizzard last week, and the snow was thick on the open space trails. I decided to trudge the sparsely plowed path down to Starbucks and back, both Saturday and Sunday.
The weather was crisp and chilly both days. On Saturday I wore boots, with good solid tread. I’d last worn them on a summer trip to Iceland, a decade ago. I’m not a fan of boots though, so the walk was tiring.
Sunday the snow was firmer, the path packed down by fellow walkers, and some of the ice had melted. My footprints from the previous day, where I’d wandered over to a branch sticking out of the snow, remained untouched.
“The crisp path through the field in this December snow, in the deep dark, where we trod the buried grass like ghosts on dry toast.”
A group of town officials were out in the open space, searching for a lost dog. Apparently it had chased a coyote into a storm drain. The young owner, a boy of about 12, carried a pole with a wire loop at the end. The sheriff had his radio out, while groundskeepers drove up and down the path. The chances seemed bleak: coyotes live in the storm drains. As I left the scene, I heard someone say “here it is.” Not sure they were talking about the dog.
After coffee, I walked back up the gully as usual. The snow was cast into eddies and whorls, carved by a windstorm two nights before. It crunched and gasped as I trudged up the path. A coyote crossed ahead of me, taking great leaps over the snow as it headed toward the cover of the ditch below. Its bounding gait seemed playful, but was probably just expeditious.
I crunched and gasped my way up the hill, and stopped at the top to look back. The sun had set. The wind was calm. The coyote, of course, was gone.