This is the only world like this, you know.
There’s no other Earth, no matter how far you go.
And we get to live in it, for this flicker of a lifetime,
and then to carry it with us past time itself.

I walked on the raised pathway through the oak grove
listening to a near-deafening chorus of frog song,
so varied in pitch and rhythm as it glided through the trees,
whose feet the rains had come to wash for spring.

Think of the energy they must summon to pull their thick sap
all the way from their roots up to the tips that touch the sky
and to make leaves and acorns from nothing but that and light.
They deserve this drenching and this clamorous serenade.

Only this one, this Earth. I let the sight of these oaks,
well over their ankles in water, soak into my being. I dissolve
in the scene and wear its smell. I taste the cool of it.
I will remember you, I say to it as I leave. I will remember.

Someone has to go first, to risk the hazards,
to scout the terrain and send back reports.
Volunteer or elected, however it came to be,
here they find themselves, both responsibility
and privilege resting on their shoulders.

This year, as in all the years I’ve watched,
the same clan has sent them.
These are the ones who step forth.
Upright and tall they arrive, wearing
the colors of a king. And rightly so.

I salute them, my toes curling in glee
as I drink in their thirst-quenching photons.
They are here, I whisper to the sky.
They are here. They are here.
The sun warms my back. It knows.

At cloud-height the winds are fierce. You can tell
by the way the clouds sweep across the sky.
But here, at the base of these broad hills,
it is still. Not one brittle husk is moving.

It’s as if the earth is holding its breath, or breathing
in slow, meditative rolls. If you stand here
and listen with your whole body, you can feel
the power–rested, awake, waiting.

Here, only earth, only sky. And between them, all
that is needed to sustain their every child. All of them.
And I get to stand here, a guest at the wedding,
tears at the beauty of it welling in my eyes.

An encore snow powdered down overnight,
two inches of it. Just right. And the blue sky
and sunshine irresistibly lured me to come play.
Then it happened. That seldom-in-a-lifetime
and only if you’re very lucky event. I caught them.
The trees. Just finishing a twirl.
You know that moment when a dance ends
and the last note has just faded into silence?
That’s how it was. I could almost hear
them settling the way they do after
a gust of wind has passed through. And I swear
their branches were slightly bobbing, even though
the air was perfectly still now, holding nothing
but exuberance, left over, I am sure,
from the dance.

Here’s what I wrote in my journal, a little piece of satire for my own entertainment:

12:30 Well, maybe. It’s clock-change day.

We’re, um, saving daylight now. I never quite understood how that works. I picture somebody in a lab coat, all expert-looking, trying to stuff it into a quart-sized canning jar. But it’s light, you know, and it keeps spilling out all over.

Anyway, everybody had to “spring forward,” and it’s now an hour later than it was yesterday at this time. So I guess whoever is in charge of this clocks thing must have figured out a way to tuck that missing hour of light safely away somewhere for us all. We’ll adjust. It’s the price we have to pay, right? You never know when we might need it after all.

And regardless of the nuisance, isn’t it amazing that we can actually save daylight now?

Life is a wondrous and mysterious place.

I suppose I’d better take some pictures. It could be
the last snow of the year. Or for ever, for that matter.
Which reminds me of the advice of a poet
(whose name, I’m sorry, I do not recall)
that went something like this:

See everything as if for the first time,
or for the last.

Remembering that woke me up.
See? Right here! It could be the last time!
Look how the scene, as always, is perfect.

Seeing throws me right into things, sharpens the real,
brings it all into focus. Right here. Right now.

But the tricky thing I’ve noticed about the present
is that it holds the past as well, and dreams and wishes
for the future, and you embroider them with colored threads
and you get lost in the picture and have to wake up
all over again.

But sometimes the beauty of it, when you do truly see,
is so poignant that it makes you make up songs of celebration.
You can’t help it. It‘s love at first sight when you first see.

Then there are the ordinary things -the wallpaper, the shoe – suddenly transformed into treasures, with their imprints
of jeweled hours and dear faces, seen as if you would never
see them ever again.

The snow today was beautiful.

Snow’s coming tonight. They say 3-5 inches.
Some of me wants to scream. I just got dug out.
And then there’s that kid inside me,
jumping and clapping in exuberant delight,
all exited, can’t wait. I scowl at her.

But I get over it right away. What will be, will be
And besides, it’s balmy enough for my spring jacket,
a fine time for a walk through the woods. While I can.
Just in case. Well, and just because it’s there,
calling me. I pull on my boots.

I head toward the path through the pines.
The vinca is popping up through the leaves.
And from the look of things, the squirrels have eaten well.
The cool air is moist and delicious, subtly scented.
I come to the edge of the lower pond.

Everything seems poised, as if waiting for a signal.
“Almost”, I say, as I round the pond’s edge. “Almost.”
“First, one more good snow.” The woods doesn’t care.
I smile, tasting the coming spring, alert for its signs.
But first, one more lovely snow.

You could pass right by here and not notice.
A glance tells you there’s nothing going on,
same old bare trees, no color, didn’t see
a living thing. But stand here for a minute.

Don’t pay those sycamores any mind.
They bring up the train on spring’s dance.
Look over there, across that little pond,
against the dark pines. The pink haze. See it?

Look! A whole sweep of pink is everywhere.
The colors never look like this any other time of year.
Soon, frogs will sing. But now. this overture of waking hues,
so pristine, and ringing.

Ghostlike cattails line the lake edge,
standing straight and tall as an old guard
of soldiers, offering a salute in honor of spring.
Their velvety brown pods spill their stuffing
onto the ice-capped lake, into the pool
of melted water at the field’s edge.
Their once-sleek leaves are brittle now
and broken, but still they stand, proud
to have endured the onslaughts of winter,
to be standing in the coming spring’s sun.
Now and then red winged blackbirds,
just arrived from the south, perch
atop them, sounding a salutation,
and the cattails hold beneath
their weight and are glad.