Morning Nuthatches

Even on this sharp dawn eleven days into the solar year a thousand eyes shine images, creaturely windows into waking being. We can deny our true bodyselves but here in cold wildnesses not so, stirring earth into bluey-black comes orange her original skin and ours. 

Friends,

Those who live by daylength measure time a little differently – the turn of the Solstice stretches the days and us – but is not every dawn a new awakening? And as it happened our last full moon landed on the Solstice or close enough with the new lunar year landing with her. Whenever it comes to each of us; that is, the feeling of hope and stretch and aborning of something wild and new, we can see the coming days opening before us. And our souls as well.

Feral days,

Jack Phillips

_{*Red-breasted nuthatch (Sitta canadensis) on the eve of Solstice, Washington County, Nebraska by Troy Soderberg. You can find them in the woodlands of western Iowa and eastern Nebraska right now, accompanied by their white-breasted cousins (S. carolinensis). For best results, wear good socks. **January 1st 2022 morning prose poem by Jack.}