When embraced, dark cold finds a balance, his path cut on narrow knives, trying to avoid a teetering stall in a deep pack, better is mobility with higher momentum and in narrows pre-cut.

A wet wet autumn, tossed flags, the listeners initiate awareness.

Running mildly, the river bifurcating metropolis spanning two northern states, grows heavy with lowered temperatures, its freeze atypical, the listeners remain aware.

Living in the Hinterland has its challenges, remote, fewer who articulate, more clustering, when its not in my backyard should I care, are you listening?

Days length grows, sunshine less oblique, air warms, in turn a frozen river thaws slowly, some become clarions for what will come, their motivations suggested as biased, struggling listeners await personal decisions to act, residing on longstanding easements and manufactured hopes.

It’s here, the river rises to a point of action, daily increase of volume suggest peril, most are hopeful, yet the river dwellers activate vigilance, knowing that a major flood extends over many weeks. From past events, these listeners prepare for a long haul battle.

Probabilistic forecasts based on history and current conditions are adjusted with silent frequency, arm chair quarterbacks challenge from a comfortable distance, no real skin in the game, relying on the suffering of others in advance, their warning.

This canary watches and waits, prepares for the worst knowing that few others will be bothered with his fight, but this, his preference. A cresting river and its highest flow rates approach, will it rain heavily at its peak, please, if you must, snow instead and stay cold; she does.

The ride to the peak is long coming, not surprising like a tornado, the prepared listeners resilient, how long can this crest remain?

The ride down, even longer, the days merge into nights, he walks the bag line inspecting for leaks. A stressed basement runs hard, newly installed sumps keeping up with the pressures of a high water table.

In a retrospective, the graphed peak is behind and offers a deep breath, he choosing vigilance, continues the careful monitoring, not relaxing until the river returns to her constraining banks, controlled, or at least an ample ways from the next crest.

Seeing sunlight through borders of shade, resting on a hill looking down on a river running north, two small chihuahuas playing under feet, summer days crossing into August.

It’s a drab Saturday afternoon,  most are dormant and disengaged from workday frenzy, light snow layers the spotty slick ice, a cold breeze cuts through my snow laden scarf, unobtrusive to any, walking is slowed by a tested concern for falling.

On the fringe of suburbia,  middle class houses straddle the road, I walk river in sight, nearing home, supplies packaged in a backpack, my center adjusted, returning from a grocery run, an excuse for exercise the motivation.

Ears muffled by two hats, the outer woolen and billed, my cadence shifts with sounding beats, gangster rap pulsing moderately, the low bass tones coherent, “Thump  Thump  Thump,” a vehicle’s rubber tires pierce the frozen sand embued surface and crackle a casual approach.

As a turquoise tinted olive sedan passes, a driver hidden behind the half opened darkened smoke window murmurs “Bang   Bang   Bang,” hinting manifested superiority at the pistol grip of a gun, my sprawled bloodied body now lifeless,  crimson melting icy white below, the punk not missing a beat continues his troll for the others deserving of his righteous requiem.

A busy bird day, mid-afternoon, the widest variety, collecting food with a vengeance, curiously after an ephemerally dense snowfall which followed the short-lived strokes of the sun, the valley’s chronic cloud cover responsible for an atypical run of sunless days.

The buckthorn, one of two that remain purposefully for diversity sake is discovered, the seed of frozen cherries the goal, like hummingbirds one species hover for an extended time while picking that fruit one by one, the tree’s canopy buzzing with action.

A black oil seed basket serving so many who share the resource, queued and rarely simultaneous, but persistent, hopping branch side and smashing the hull to ingest, or caching seed for surviving the thrills of a winter notorious for lingering well beyond February and March.

I imagine for the bitter winter survivor its a day by day challenge to consume energy and to make water, to nest as blizzards storm, or as Orion gleams brightest in the longest and coldest of nights, certainly its not an old bird’s game.

It could be that my own two wings and feathers deserve attention, survival never certain, winter blowing hard can unseat the most taloned of birds, the most prepared of creatures.