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.

Overnight, the maple’s red buds burst,
freeing their tiny leaves to reach for the sky.
They etch a scarlet lace against the deep blue
where days ago, there were but bare twigs.

From one of the high branches, a call
sounded forth, clear and high, a single note
followed by a pause and then repeated.
From across the way an answer came,

filling the pauses, and waiting for a reply.
Back and forth the two birds called
to one another, as if their sole mission
was to mark the opening of the buds,

and their song went on and on.

On my window the worlds inside the raindrops are upside-down, with the sky at the bottom and the earth on top. What if you were a bird flying across that upside-down sky? Would you be trapped inside the drop’s edges? Would you guess that a hundred other worlds, much like yours, with birds much like you, were gliding down a transparent surface beside you? Would you feel the slide and make up myths about what it means?

I have no answers. I go outside where up is still the direction of the sky. But then I come to the puddles at the side of the road where trees, of all things, are upside down, too, or, like the mother spruce, stretched on her back in the water, clay smeared across her and a bed of pebbles at her side as if it were all some surrealist work of art.

Even if you walk to a puddle’s far side so that the trees look upright, they are not solid, as they seem to be in the world I (laughingly) call real, and stones hang above them in their watery sky.

Nevertheless, the scene has a kind of beauty to it.

Tomorrow I will wake to sunshine and this will all be gone, these dreams I dreamed on this rainy winter day. “But don’t worry,” I say to them, wrapping them in soft sheets of memory. “I will remember you. I will remember.”

I cannot possibly tell you how glad I am
to see these glorious spires,
the tips of daffodils, rising from the soil
as if joy itself propelled them.

If angels suddenly materialized before my eyes
I would not be more stunned or filled with awe
than I am by these heaven-pointing fingers
in all their wondrous shades of green,
that stand before me now.

I’m still a quarter mile from the marsh when I hear them, the red-winged blackbirds. The males sing conk-la-ree, the last note sharp and rising, the females answering with chack-chack-chack in applause.

My approach alarms them. A male darts from the reeds to the top of a young, budding maple and continues its interrupted serenade.

 The sun glints off the pond’s waters. The winter-bleached cattails glow golden in its late afternoon light.

A pair of mallards, fresh from my dreams, floats in slow circles near the far shore.

I stand on the hilltop, glad as day to be here, drinking in the sights and the oh-so-welcome song.

A friend tells me that her daffodils are several inches above ground now. Of course she lives a few hundred miles south of me. But still, it’s possible that mine might be sprouting, too.

I walk to the back corner where a patch of them grows wild every year. All I find is matted leaves, wall to wall. I’ll keep watch.

On my way back to the house I stop to say hello to the sentinel I call the Eldest Daughter, a spruce I count among my close and dearly loved companions. Wordlessly, I ask if spring is coming.

Wordlessly, she answers, showing me how her arms are open in welcome, how an overflow of fresh sap is oozing onto her bark. I pat her in thanks.

Always she bestows her gentle lessons in patience.

But I think that, secretly, she likes my anticipation, too.