Broken Snowshoe Moon

Photo copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.

First lines:

It is the time of the arrival of the small birds: hardy little creatures who can withstand the late snows that continue to descend in all defiance of the calendar.

To points west of the place where I come from, they call it the Sugarbushing Moon, and in truth, so do some of our people, as well. It is, after all, solidly in the middle of maple syrup season, a time for tapping the trees and draining the sap and boiling it into syrup and setting aside some of it to harden into sugar. According to the old stories, our ancestors used to be able to drink straight from the tree itself, until the day that one of our tricksterish spirit beings fell asleep beneath a maple and awakened to find his head covered in sticky syrup. He was so angry, he decreed that the people would thenceforth have to work for it, tapping the trees and processing the sap, so that he would never again have to awaken in such an uncomfortable and humiliating position. 

But “broken snowshoe” fits perfectly well, too. In parts of our world, especially in the days before the advent of vehicles beyond a travois, but even today, there are places where the snows drift so deep and harden so thoroughly that the only sensible way to travel is on snowshoe-clad foot. But snowshoes are hand-made of natural materials, and normal wear and tear takes its toll over the course of a Midwestern winter. By what the ordinary calendar calls April, technically now spring but practically still solid buried in winter’s snows, the shoes are breaking apart, along with everyone’s patience. 

The April just past was cold and snowy here, too, but it was not the weather that froze my spirit solid.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.