Aki and I have just left the forest for a graveled beach. It was easy walking in the woods. Last night’s snow never penetrated the forest’s canopy. There is little snow on the beach. Most of it has been wiped away by the last high tide. Above a thick line of seaweed that marks the tide line, snow still occupies the hollows between gravel, dead beach grass and abandoned mussel shells. 

          The water offshore is clam, as if weighed down by low clouds that seem to touch the water’s surface. A few meters away from us a dozen gulls work to ignore the little dog and I. Twenty meters out, an equal number of harlequin ducks hunt for fish. After diving, one of the ducks calls out with a cry that could have been made by excited toddler on the playground. 

            Aki gives me a hard look, like she might to discourage me from musing about birds and the sounds they make. She doesn’t want to hear me ponder out loud why crows croak, eagles scream, gulls keen, and harlequins cry out with childish joy.