I’m always impressed at how trees survive the winter months. Some look beleaguered but determined to stay green no matter what the weather. Others are pale and brittle, just trying to hang on until spring. Some are delicate, expressive, stoic, proud, suspended in wild contortions. Then, although their limbs are faded as driftwood, new buds suddenly appear.
January trees get no attention in New York. Fall’s where the action is — the color, the rush of color. We look up in fall. But when the leaves fall, we, in fact, look down. If we looked, we’d see, revealed each January, wild clumps of tangled nests suddenly left behind. Birds lived here. Behind the leaves we knew — green, colored, brown, whatever — these nests were obscured. Now empty and otherwise unsightly, these brown scrambled houses are in plain view. But only a few are looking up to see them.
