Colour of winter

The island has put on its seasonal colours even though we are not yet into winter's depths. My eyes are slowly adjusting to a world of grey, white, brown and green.  The island's pied and dappled beauty is subtle now.  I have to look more closely than in easier seasons to take it in. 

Grey-green lichens stipple the trees and the stone walls and the boulders. The greens of the mosses are softer shades now, tending more toward brown. Three or four kinds of ferns cover the island in summer, but now they are cinnamon against the grey stone walls.   

A birch tree stands out against the constant background of dark green spruce. Its bare branches claim close attention.  Today it receives the close attention of some little bird searching for insects. The chickadee -- if it is a chickadee--is grey and black and white, the colours of the tree. 

Emerging boulders poke their rounded forms out of the earth, ancient creatures being slowly born. You can see them more clearly now that they are not hidden in grasses and wildflowers. They are bronze and grey in a field of white.      

The sky and the sea are grey today, but that word hardly describes their variety. The sea is pewter, its waves flowing peacefully into the shore.  In an hour it will be something else entirely, though I do not know what. The Nova Scotia sky is a holy thing, high and astonishing, always changing. There is no moment when it is not worth your while to look up. This must be because the sea reflects the sky, so that even on the dullest day we live in a bowl filled with light.