Greetings of the lunar new year! In the Chinese calendar we move, with this new moon, into a Water Dragon year.
Geese this time of year? Hmmmm, strange.....south east was where this flock was heading. Geographically I came from far south and east of where I now am.
So there she was: a little bit of waning brilliance tangling in twigs of a cold dawn infinity of blue.
Like a bird on the wire
I put up a variety of bird feeders in the garden tree, hoping to attract some colour and life to the bleak backyard. I was thinking lbj's: finches, grossbeaks, nuthatches, chickadees, that kind of thing. Little seed and suet munchers.
This fat guy and his friend gatecrashed the party this morning. Northern Flickers! Ever the opportunists. My old friend the woodpecker come calling. Birthday messengers.
Saturday morning, needing an adapter for the washing machine, I walk down the road to the hardware store. I take the scenic route back to Halemakua , weaving a circuitous way all over the north eastern part of town.
I stand a while looking into the medicine bowl mirror of the water, wondering if there is a message in the shifting light. Trees and ripples and again that bluest of blues. 
I follow the train tracks a little way out of town letting the weak midday sun bathe my forehead. There is ice on the wind and I wonder if it is moist enough for snow. Too cold and dry, maybe. But there's that blue again: overarching skyblue.
Searching for what has me in checkmate, I return to Halemakua where I take the Penelope cure: situate myself with a grandstand view of the birdfeeders, pile on the blankets and begin knitting a striped zigzag edged shawl. After unraveling a triangular shawl from the needles. One of these days I am going to finish something.
Sometimes the only chance for colour in these bleak, midwinter monochrome, January days is the brief flare at sunrise. Miss it and that's it for the day. 
Through the western window I catch the just-over-full Wolf Moon setting in a chilly dawn while the neighbours, oblivious of the celestial display, get on with getting their day begun.
Another year. 2012. I dig out my purple Ganesha shirt, now eleven years old. I got it in Delhi with Rose, early January 2001. We were en route to Pushkar in Rajasthan, from the Dera in the Punjab.
On the first day of the year the wind horses plunged and galloped. A little bit of rebel prayer and colour on a winter subdued, monochrome street.
The river that runs through the little mountain town is a winding snake carrying me most often all the way to the Karen Blixen salt water of healing.
The railway line is an arrow. A blade slicing across streets. Cutting neighbour from neighbour. Rattling windows and doors with a clamourous chuffing, a great clanging. Ripping through the midnight with the series of mournful whistles at each street. Piercing all the way to the heartland.
