April moon

It’s a little after 4 a.m. The moonlight spills through the roof skylight and onto the place where I’m writing. I’m thinking it was the moon that woke me up. I seem to be as anxious as the coyotes sounded earlier this evening; as anxious as the nearby creek where it makes a drop while rounding a bend. Anxious like the glaciers melting; feels like. Maybe it’s the enfolding mood of the days of ice-out: The peeling back of winter; scent-memories of spring from springs before. Maybe it’s all of it that’s keeping me awake.

I open the window in the loft roof, which is not far above my head; stand on the stool; stick my head out, smell the smells; listen to the stillness of the coming of day. Often do it. Well, more like from time-totime. In pyjamas, stick my head out of the roof window to feel the night from the owl’s point of view. Sometimes share the moment with my son Luc before he goes to bed. He likes owls. Our heads out of the roof in the enveloping night sky; Great Bear; Little Dipper. He thinks it’s cool and so do I. His mother doesn’t. It’s time for bed and it’s snowing she’d say.

Well I agree it was a different kind of winter to open the skylight even now and then. But I’d reckon that a bit of snow in the house in trade of a breath of night is a fair deal, all things considered. But tonight, the April moon has come callin’; settin’ right here on my desk for a stay.

And not that I’m a numbers person, but it was a full moon at midnight: Actually 12:04 a.m. on the tide charts. It’ll be high tide in the AnnapolisBasin at 6:27 am: 8 metres; that’s high. If our bodies are 90 per cent water in content like they say they are, that’s gotta be it. Makes sense to be restless. My body-tide is on the rise with the seas and through the skylight window I can feel the Earth turn slowly towards a new day. No wonder? Betcha the 24-hour Tim’s in Picton is packed with people feeling exactly like I am.

And one more thing: last evening by the GardenvilleBridge where remnants of January linger beside the hedgerows? Beside the creek that runs to WellersBay? The air at dusk was ripe with all that is April. And I saw them. Otters: chasing along the bank of the creek like children playing ‘pin the tail on the donkey’. Their short front legs and wide webbed feet made it look as though they were clowning, seal-like as they ran. My first time seeing them gait their way on land; otters seem to have a twinkle of curiosity in their eyes and smile. I’ve met them before; in a January rain, at nightfall. They were playing on the ice at the mouth of the Murray canal. They consoled me. I’ll always remember that.

It was back then that I looked them up, to understand them better: Largest member of the weasel family; like the muskrat and beaver; distinguished by their stout, tapered furred tail; prominent nose, long bristly whiskers, thick neck. It’s them alright, looking like they’re portaging a canoe around the rapids. They disappear into the underbrush. I laugh at the playfulness. Otters breed in late winter to early spring, and a male river otter will use 40-100 linear miles of shoreline while mom and the kits will stick close to home. Means I just may see them again.

So the April moon is my muse tonight. Blood Moon. The surge of spring, the tides, the surprise of otters at play. It all adds up. Reconciled in my imagination. I’ll go back to sleep and at least wait for the rooster to crow. That sound seems to wake me every County recycling day. Somehow a grounding reminder that Daryl and his loud recycling truck will be by at 8 a.m. Paper on the left; plastics to the right; gotta get the bins out to the curb; Now that I can see where the road ends and the curb begins, that is. Which is another consoling factor of ice-out.