a short walk through moose country this morning

Even though my time has been limited, I made the trek to my favorite pond twice this week. Last Sunday, the water was flat and frozen. Yesterday, it was miraculously open, or at least that’s how it seemed. Like a miracle—the surface falling into fluidity. The lid gone, waves lapping the granite rocks ringing the eastern rim.

Woodpeckers tapping—an echo through trees still bare. And chickadees. Peepers announced the marsh like a crowded room I was suddenly walking in. I was still too far from their perception of threat to quiet them.

Salamanders did their low-float, stretch—stroke—sink. Settle. Slowly lift (again) from the leaf litter along the water’s edge. I wrote in the sun. A loon called. The surprise caused me to laugh out loud—the kind of laugh that is pure, brief delight.  They are already back, I thought. Everything is right in the world again.

Geese flushed from a place I couldn’t see through the vegetation density of buds barely bulging.

Through the marsh. 

The wind blew. My mother's feet stopped. I saw her listening. I listened. Winter rustled into spring on Good Friday. A painted turtle swam.

a little smile... a little rest... a great way to begin another year

when there is no hurry

Five years ago, I arrived at the reservoir, canoe loaded, and hopeful. It was an abnormally warm spring, and I was confident I would break my record for the earliest paddling day of the year--April 11th. But, I was wrong. Instead, from the edge, we laughed and tossed stones onto the thawing ice, watching bubbles of air rise in the gel-like water. It was warm enough to sit in the sun and ponder nothing... the gull soaring, looking for liquid access to fish.

April 1st

 

White falls into small pools--a warm snowy day. I sip coffee. Note the silence of the field. I watch winter cling to the maple. I name this the month of anticipation, my feet more ready than my head.