Liminal: situated at a sensory threshold: barely perceptible
By Dana Hoeschen

Time as Still Life
There is a still life quality to the scene, a gray scale photograph, stark but not sinister, still but not lifeless. It is almost as if the scene is arranged, poised, patiently willing to be as it is until it changes. Or is it changing, imperceptibly to me, at this moment, every moment?
Is it just me, who imposes structure, who wishes to examine time in tiny slivers; who attempts to rearrange fragments of hours until they have no meaning beyond the day? What is contained within this urge to stop the rush of movement, the blur of activity? What brings me to this silent moment, alone, awake, and aware?
I observe, reflect, try to understand.
I want to belong.

Rabbit Tracks

In the fresh snow there is a trail of rabbit tracks. The single set of tracks run from the bird's nest spruce at the edge of the garden to the base of the bird feeder outside the living room bay window. The small duos of oval-shaped impressions are a hop-width apart, steadily, evenly spaced. Beside the feeder pole the rabbit crouches, nosing aside the light white covering of snow to reveal the scattered leavings of birdseed. In the shadowless light the rabbit is a small dark mound on chalky gray snow.

The scene is still, neutral dimness in the dawn light. The birds will not appear until after the sun rises. The rabbit will be gone by then, back to its burrow. The bird feeder will be crowded with jostling chickadees, nuthatches, and juncos. Now it is abandoned, a weathered wooden box with a slanted roof perched at the top of a square wooden pole. From my study window it is a depthless block of abraded black board.

On those mornings I wake before sunrise, I see the rabbit scavenging under the birdfeeder. On those mornings I wake after sunrise, I see only the trail of rabbit tracks. Every dawn the rabbit comes to the feeder, every day it is gone by sunrise. I mark the days between snowfalls with the constancy of the rabbit trail.

The Pause

Downstairs in the darkened living room I open the heavy iron door of the wood burning stove and layer split chunks of oak and elm logs on top of ash-muffled coals in the firebox. The coals glow slightly, exposed to the air, a flare of reddish gold warmth that fades back to ashy gray and charcoal black. A few breaths and slight wisps of light gray smoke rise from beneath the wood chunks. They drift upward, in tenuous strands slipping out the open stove door, carrying the faint sweet crispness of burning oak into the room.

The brick hearth beneath my bare feet radiates the residual heat of the night fire. Through the heavy glass window of the stove I watch as the first tendrils of flame twine around the edges of the logs; golden, red, yellow, orange and finally blue tipped flickers of warmth. The metal stovepipe begins to ping, metal expanding with the heat, like the ticking of a clock measuring the increasing pace of time, an accelerating notification of the reviving fire. I close the stove door. The ticking fades, a final rush of staccato pings.

Outside at the feeder, I see the rabbit stiffen into motionlessness as it registers my presence at the windows. I step back.

There is a nearly imperceptible twitch of the small blunt tipped ears of the rabbit, so unlike the long, slender, white and pink ears of domestic rabbits. I can see one eye of the rabbit, dark brown, and shiny. This wild rabbit does not have the rim of pink around its eye or the silky white fur of domestic rabbits. Its coat is bristly, thick with dark variations of black and gray that match the indistinct light of the early morning. It is a phantom rabbit, a shadow appearing and disappearing, leaving only tracks in the snow.

On our respective sides of the window, the rabbit and I stay still. I can hear the slow whup, whup of the ceiling fan blades as they circle high in the air above me. I can feel the cold of the exterior walls seep slowly toward my bare feet. In the kitchen behind me the dog snorts and snores on his rug. I wonder what the rabbit hears. Are his feet getting cold too? Does he smell, even through the thick walls of the house, my scent?

Finally the rabbit lowers its head and resumes eating. I can see the cyclical movements of its tiny jaw as it chews. I feel my body relax, I release the breath I don't realize I have been holding, trying to be as still as the rabbit.

At the horizon the sun is suspended, the sky lightens from deep gloom to milky gray, on the yard the softest of shadows tint the snow, at the feeder the rabbit stills, behind me the fire flares. I pause, poised in the moment and watch.

Sunrise

Slivers of pink orange light filter through the branches of the old maple at the top of the yard. Light puddles along the horizon, a brighter white, all color, or no color, casting barely discernable shadows on the metallic blue gray snow. From the edge of the gutter an icicle has frozen, the white light fracturing its crystalline coldness into orange yellow sparkles.

There is no movement outside, no birds at the feeder, no rabbit making its way back to its spruce nest. The black silhouette branches of the trees are still, outstretched across the sky, posed reaching, straining toward the light. Thin streamers of clouds lie across the deepening blue of the sky. Their wispy thinness piled carefully on the flat blue cloth like roves of finely carded wool waiting to be spun into the thread of day.

The sun, when it rises will crest the horizon just south of the trunk of the big maple. It will slowly and deliberately climb through the tangle of limbs over the length of the morning until it reaches the top of the tree and the midday sky. Then it will leap from the tree, dance, play at hide and seek among the clouds until tired of its games it will settle on the opposite horizon and slip from view. Each morning I mark the ebbing of winter with the slow shift of the sunrise south in the horizon and past the maple tree.

There it is, an orb of platinum gold burning through the dense tree line at the horizon, whitening the sky, silvering the undersides of clouds. Spots form before my eyes, reflecting little dots of intense light that remain, brightening when I blink or close my eyes. The sun breaks free of the horizon, and begins its ascent through the tree branches. The clouds above the maple solidify in the light, forming a long arcing line, like waves on a lake breaking against a golden pebbly shore. The birds, as if released from the trees by the light, begin flying around the yard. In the next room there is the rustling of a body stirring, my partner moving from bed to door to hallway. Soon there will be more sounds, the dog rising from his bed in the sunroom, clicking his way across the linoleum floor of the kitchen, the coffee maker, its timer automatically triggered, gurgling water into the morning stimulus. Morning has arrived, daybreak is past; the light prods me to move on.

Windows

This morning I turn on the ceiling lamp to see the page in my notebook. The artificial light announces to the birds at the feeder that a human is present. I am present and yet not present. The window glass is a barrier, separating inside from outside, human from nature. The light reflecting on the glass makes the window like a mirror. In it my form is vague, not even a silhouette. Only patches of pale skin float in the window, my wrists, hands, neck, and the ghostly oval of my face. My eyes are dark orbs, my expression solemn, still, mesmerized by the vision of the landscape through my own features. If I turn my head slightly the trunk of the paper birch in the yard below becomes the ridge of my nose. Its branches flare out over my eyebrows and forehead. I am the tree, and myself.

Absolute Gray

There won't be a sunrise today. Not one I can see. The landscape is gray, unrelenting variations of gray. The milky snow is the palest of grays, the unappetizing color of skim milk. The birch trees are slightly darker gray. Even darker are the thick trunks of the maple trees. And at the distance of the horizon the tree line is the darkest of the grays, nearly black. The air seems tinged with gray; thick, dense, wet, and cold.

White is supposed to be empty of all color or the container of all color. The same can be said for black. The absolutes, the blacks and whites, are either all color or no color, absorbing all or rejecting all. So what colors are in gray, the color of fog, haze, the featureless sky- clouds so heavy with snow and cold they absorb the light? And what colors are in reflection, translucence, clarity?

Good Intentions

The wind was busy yesterday and last night. It blew about, sculpted, and smoothed the snow, erasing all the hard edges I have imposed on the yard. There are pristine drifts and rolls where once there were long straight edged flowerbeds. There are swirls and curls of snow at the corners of the of the corded firewood rows. A cold white shroud has been thrown over the paths and patios. The field beyond the yard is nearly flat, with tiny undulations along its surface, the echo waves of a calmed lake. The car tracks in the driveway have been filled in, smoothed over, erased.

This morning I feel isolated, abandoned, and alien. Was that the wind's intention? Use the few inches of falling snow to obscure or ideally erase the human presence from this small plot of land? And can I blame the wind? Hadn't I felt uneasy lately, aware of my arrogance in marking out flower beds of colorful and non native plants, planting vegetables in another garden, adding groupings of flowering shrubs and fruit trees to the open spaces in the yard, my yard. But I did all this with the intention of improving the environment.

My intention was good, although admittedly not altruistic. I wanted the yard to look park like, a calm beautiful space to wander and ponder. I wanted variety and order in the same place. I wanted control, dominance, but only in the best way. I was the benevolent dictator, the great designer, god of my private paradise. I planted my gardens to encourage habitation by wildlife. With the exception of the vegetable plot, the birds and rabbits, the foxes and raccoons, the snakes and frogs have the run of the place. No nasty chemicals on the lawn, no fences or barriers around the trees and shrubs, no nets over the apple trees or berry bushes. All is available, first come first serve. We all; humans and animals, share and share alike. It's a haven, this yard, my sanctuary and at the same time a local wildlife refuge.

The light is getting stronger; I can see the lines of tracks in the yard. There is a new rabbit track from garden to feeder, a single set again. There are squirrel tracks from the base of the old maple tree, also ending at the bird feeder. At the top of the yard there is another set of tracks, the three pointed-toe tracks of the pheasant, the new resident of the row of pines at the edge of the field. If I were to go outside and walk the perimeter of the yard I'd find the deep indentations of a well-worn deer trail along the edge of the yard from arborvitaes to apple trees. I would find the trail that diverts to the juniper and white pine and birch. More rabbit tracks run from the wildness of the ravine to the young shrubs, ninebark and dogwood, that form a meandering island garden in the center of the yard. If I pulled up the layers of leaf mulch around the shrubs and over the flowerbeds I would find the nests and runs of field mice, voles and moles.

A few days ago I stood in the window of the sunroom and watched a lone lanky coyote trot across the yard, sniff the trellised honeysuckle and trumpet vines, and pause at the Jonathan apple tree to mark his territory. Behind me, lying in a late winter beam of sunlight, the old dog snored oblivious to this proof that my efforts to repopulate the land are working.

This was once a barren farmstead, poor soil, weedy yard, scraggly trees and a modest farmhouse and outbuildings. Nearly twenty years I have worked to improve the land, add variety and vitality to the little three-acre plot of ground surrounded by the overworked and chemically enabled cropland. The return of the birds to the yard and shrubs and trees, nesting and raising their young, brought the return of the predators, the hawks and the eagles. The understory diversity of the field rows and brushy cover means more rabbit dens and chipmunk burrows. And so the coyotes and foxes are returning. Possums and raccoons abound. In this little three acres there are snakes and frogs, bees and wasps, butterflies and caterpillars, deer and turkeys, pheasants and woodchucks, and, in the ravine, maybe a bear.

Unforeseen Results

Clear skies all morning and I wander the yard, making a mental list of the signs winter is ebbing and the spring surge begun. Rugosa Rose canes are already starting to green at the base of the plants; only a few shriveled hips dangle from dried branch ends. Further down the yard the crimson birch's survival is questionable; it's slender trunk rabbit gnawed, it's branch tips deer bitten. Nearby a young white pine has been ravaged, the lower branches broken by deer leaning into the tree to reach the tender growth of the taller branches. More rabbit damage; the clematis vines on the arbor are a line of dangling stems, clipped about six inches above the ground. Most of the shrubs show more damage, rodent teeth marks on the branches just visible above the receding snow line. In the small clearing of pine trees I examine the magnolia trees. The soft silver buds are just visible at the ends of the branches. The trees are loaded with potential flowers. I imagine the trees in full bloom, large, white petal stars fluttering at the ends of all the branches, flickering in the shadow of the dark green pines, the delicate sweetness mixing with the scent of crisp pine. Last spring the deer ate the plump swollen buds just as they broke to bloom. Only three blooms at the very top of the trees survived. "And this year, and this year," I hear a bird taunting from the trees.

Silence

I heard silence yesterday. The woods along the river were deeply quiet. If I stopped along the path and listened past my own breathing there were no sounds at all. There was no wind moving the corpses of oak leaves still clinging to the branches of the trees, no thin branches rubbing and clattering against each other. There were no whispering weeds swaying in the underbrush, sawing and rasping with the breeze. No birds sang, or leapt into flight as I wandered through. No animals started through the brush snapping tree limbs and weed stalks. No water movement could be heard under the layer of mushy ice on the river. Only the occasional caw of the crows helped me measure the silence of the woods.

This Morning

This morning the eastern sky is horizontal bands of lavender purple and deep blue gray. As the sun approaches the horizon, which is what it must be doing, the lines of low clouds are bright orange pink, the shade intensifying through stripes of cloud and sky.

This morning there are five rabbits at the feeders. They are an active distracted bunch. They break into arcing dashes and mock attacks on each other. They skitter and scatter, spooking each other, coming back to the feeder, jumping away again.

This morning the sky appears both scratched and bruised. Dark clouds fill the sky almost to the horizon. In the narrow strip of clear sky pink-red streaks, like long lines of inflamed welts on flesh, slash parallel across the sky. Rapier sharp ticks of blood-red seep from fresh wounds on the undersides of clouds. Dawn attacks with swords.

This morning the silence is oppressive, anxious, anticipating. Everything hushed, the trees standing firmly, stalwart sentries, braced black against the bright sky. Nothing stirs, all is still, quiet, listening, waiting. Inhale and hold. How much of my mood, emotions do I transfer to the landscape I see outside this window? Today my restlessness seems projected on the scene. On another morning under a different sky, in another mood, I could view the sunrise with wonder and awe. I would be uplifted by its gorgeous color display, encouraged by its presence.

This morning I am bruised, scratched, and anxious. This morning I want to be still, braced for the potential, on guard against the irritations and uncertainties of the day. This morning I ache and think the sky must too.

This morning I am drawn to the strength, comfort, constancy of the sunrise. I see dazzling energy, splashed across the horizon, vibrant, vital, affirming. This morning I am tired and brave, cautious and attentive, strong and undecided. This morning I am sunrise.