Into the Snow

I go where I love and where I am loved,
Into the snow …
H.D., from The Flowering of the Rod

Early on a mid-December morning, when the light was just right, Mr. Bear ventured out with his camera to photograph the snowy landscape behind our house.

In the center of the backyard lives Mapleluselah, a maple tree that visiting naturalist Sara Wright said was at least 200 years old. Mapleluselah can be seen from space (in satellite photography) and is used by migrating birds as a way-marker (we are guessing this because twice a year the backyard becomes a small-bird staging area, a place to rest and fatten up before heading farther north in the spring or south in the fall).

Mapleluselah is loved by everyone, whether they fly with their own wings or scurry up the trunk with four little feet or stop their car to visit on two legs and sit in the tree swing.

Over a long lifetime, Mapleluselah has become a Universal Attractor.