JOY ALONG THE WAY: LOW EBB SIGNATURES

Just when you think the complexities of living are approaching a critical mass leading to the production of a million, simultaneous, primordial screams, comes the solace of winter. It is the winding down time, the nadir of the year, at which point there can only begin the upswing.

Mankind's attention, at least in our latitudinal and meridional space, becomes more attentive to staying warm, and seeing to it that a pot of something edible is simmering on the stove. Maybe it ought to get even colder. Do Eskimos ever kill their babies? Seed a snow field with mines? Go on random shooting sprees, etc., etc., etc.? No. They'd rather just stay warm and lay in a supply of fish.

Beginning to walk normally again after the broken knee, I stroll around the yard, observing the simplicities, the calm, and quiet of winter. Except for the pin oaks, the trees are bereft of their leaves. One can see clearly how the limbs stretch toward the sky as if to still grab hold of life sustaining sunshine and rain, but it is the leaves that do that. Life has now receded into the roots to rest.

Bird nests that I couldn't find in summer are also clearly revealed, and there are two squirrel nests high up in an oak and a sweet gum. How these nests manage to stay intact throughout the winter's rain, sleet and snow is beyond me. Birds and squirrels have no sentiment attached to their old homes. Use 'em and leave 'em is their code of culture and architecture.

My thoroughly confused forsythia is blooming, although sparsely. There would have been plenty for the Thanksgiving table centerpiece, but how gauche!

The dogwoods that did so poorly last spring show signs of making up for it next spring. Each little twig holds an abundance of little gray buds that will eventually be blossoms. But now, let 'em sleep in cold storage.

The trellised garden seats, such busy places in the summer, appear lonesome and abandoned. A blue jay or cardinal will sometimes alight on the pinnacle of a supporting post as if in an attempt to bring back the glory days but do not linger long, seeming to agree that this is not the time nor place for songs and revelry. It is the simple time. The world is resting. Shh!

Down in the far a corner, which seems to be almost in someone else's yard, are the nandina bushes. I went there especially to see if any lacquer red berries remained on the bushes. The birds had beat me. There were exactly ten berries. "Simplifying, too, are you?" I mumbled. I looked under the bushes to see if there were any old toads or tortoises that had not yet sought their places to hibernate. No signs of life of any kind.

Way off in the distance I heard a single crow. One left over from the annual Arena Park November Crow Convention, I thought. He just couldn't get over the turn of convention events and was still cawing querulously.

Coming back toward the house, by way of the big wild cherry stump, I peered down into its deteriorating cavity, poked around with a stick, way down, and thought what a wonderful place that would be for a mother skunk to have her babies. A neighbor recently said he saw a deer running through my yard. Red foxes have been seen in the neighborhood. Why not a stump full of little pole kittens? It would help retard the growth of the critical mass leading to multitudinous primordial screams. Maybe.

REJOICE!

~Jean Bell Mosley is an author and longtime resident of Cape Girardeau.