When winter arrives, as it has, place settles.  Quiet no longer moves across the landscape.  Quiet is.

Over the years a path has been worn between the house and the winter water trough.  It is walked many times during the summer.  During the winter though, I walk it often.  Winter water is always work.  Good work. But when cold settles and needed water freezes; good work has the edge of chore.

Walking to the trough when air has acquired that certain attitude of freezing every exposed hair—nose, eyebrow, ear, and when you’ve yet accepted cold’s ability to find the one gap between your layers of clothing, there is little good feeling for cold.  Near the end of the path is a clump of grease-brush.  There’s a telling moment as the path rounds the brush. For the water trough comes into view.  Glassy, still, ice-free water, says the trough heater and water pump are working as you hoped.  Shoulders can literally feel chore’s edge dissipate as the body becomes aware it needs not break ice or worry water.  In the easing you become aware of mouth fog rising past your nose, then eyes, settling upon and freezing to your eyelashes.  The clothing gap is forgotten.  In the quiet of still water your interior opens.

There is a listening when winter settles.