In the Kingdom of the Ditch

Two Sounds after an October Storm

22 Two Sounds after an October Storm The woods have changed: early wet snow on leaves; torn limbs; entire trees on the ground. Walking in to my hunting-stand, I scare up two grouse from beneath a bent witch hazel, an explosion of feathers as today’s temperatures are back where they should be. This time of year bear continue to roam, eating acorns in the darkest part of the hollow. After I killed my first deer, I couldn’t stop dreaming about how it died. I suppose that’s as it should be: to take a life is to live with that life until your own death. This past week two bucks have been rubbing their antlers against the slats of our deck railing. Even up high on the mountain the red and white oaks are still green. At 44 I’m not sure if I’m halfway to my death. How many of us know what’s coming when the first heavy snow starts down? With this storm we stood and watched, soaked through, until the woods began to creak, and we walked out from under the trees and into the field to wait for the first gunshot of beech or maple breaking. Once it began you couldn’t hear the person next to you, and the sound of splintering lasted most of the night. When we woke, the road was closed, the power out. This is how it happens: the throttled whine of a chainsaw; the faraway drone of a single-engine plane surveying the damage. ...