Winter Bird Garden

December 12, 2016

It has snowed for at least three days in a row.  Lovely, pure, white snow dressing up the trees and illuminating what was dull and gray before.  

The birds come to our feeders in happy, brisk, little flights.  Some come solo, others arrive in tiny flocks that seem to take turns.  Seeing them makes me realize how much my eyes have already missed seeing colors beyond gray and brown.  

I see them now as my flower garden of winter.  Even those birds with colors that blend into the background belong in this garden and delight my eyes.  Of course, it is the cardinals and blue jays who provide the brightest colors, who seem to know and enjoy their status. Through my window I can scarcely keep up with the brilliant red male cardinals and the equally beautiful, reddish-brown and cream females.  In the space of a breath, I count 7 males around and in the feeder, and as I check my count, they move again, rearranging, coming and going in short, flirty flights.  Where there were 7, there are 4, then 8, then 2, and it is dizzying trying to be sure of their numbers.  For a moment, there are equal numbers of males and females, and just as quickly, they scatter back to the trees or hop out of sight into the reddish and leafless dappled willow nearby.

Both cardinals fluff their feathers, their wind-driven mohawks blowing this way and that, changing their expressions from noble to condescending toward those non-red birds around them.  Sometimes, though I don't believe they know it, those magnificent crests blow sideways, creating an absurd, juvenile delinquent appearance.  Yet I imagine they are the roses of the winter garden, flaunting themselves as they feed, knowingly brilliant against the new, white snow.  

The junco, with his black and white pattern, enjoys the seeds that drop into the snow beneath the feeder.  He is unlike any flower that comes to mind, but he is part of the winter garden, nonetheless, his bright eyes and tilting head seem to communicate a friendliness similar to that of the chickadee.

And, in all seasons, chickadees abound, zipping about and calling happily to each other and anyone who is out and about on this snowy day.  With their black caps and white stripes, they settle on perches from top to bottom of the tube feeder, blooming up and down the stem of the swaying column.

Interspersed with the chickadees, the finches are the very thistles they partake of in late summer and fall.  The purple-red of their heads and breasts vary from bird to bird, but they arrive in abundance, chattering their finch-speak at each other and themselves.  Briskly they rearrange themselves over and over, tiny feet like curling vines, cling to each perch. 

Among these are deceptively drab finches, only the slightest hint of the sundrop yellow they will become when spring arrives again.  Smudges of dark, stony mustard are the clue I must look for to know who they are.  Every winter they are incognito, making me wonder year after year why the cardinal does not also go undercover?  The goldfinches draw no attention to themselves, like the small, muted flowers of moonbeam coriopsis, but so much dimmer.  Their golden lights are hushed and muffled, but I know who they really are. Inside, their hearts are small suns, waiting to join the spring celebration when the earth has tilted and turned to face our own life-giving sun again.

Tufted titmouse and the nuthatches both hop vertically, tails pointing up and beaks down, defying gravity, behaving as if they are on a strict timeline and might be called away any second now.  The tufted titmouse has its, "tuft," or crest upright, alert for changes in the wind.

The red-bellied woodpecker has just arrived at the suet feeder.  He wears his handsome, black and white chevron cape and his bright, orange hat, set at a jaunty angle on the back of his head.  He is more of a rarity, like the midsummer tiger lilies that I prize, for I have so few. 

Replacing the red-bellied are the smaller downy and hairy woodpeckers.  They are the sweetest little birds with their fluffy markings in black, white, and tiny orange or red patches.  They attend both the suet and the seed feeders, seeming to be tentative little flowers, uncertain of their place in the seemingly random schedule of bird-blooms.

Aggressively beautiful, the blue-jays sweep in and everybody else disappears.  Their brilliant blue, patterned with white and black, is a welcome sight for color-starved eyes. They are large and showy flowers of winter, confidently stealing center stage from the others.

They are a moving garden, to be sure, but they bloom with no effort on my part, save for adding the seed, and they change constantly.  I have no gardening tools, nor a part to play in which will bloom or when.  I can enjoy the entire garden from the comfort and warmth of my home, and though I have no, "green space," I have an active and ever-changing garden scene inside my own, personal snow globe.

T.

Gradual Spring

Early spring walks are treasure hunts for me.  I am always scanning, inspecting, bending down to look more closely.  I "collect" my findings in my mind, celebrating each one, or mourning, if mourning is called for.
Every treasure finds some way to stand out in the leafless woods of oak and pine.  Last week it was a bright, ribbon snake, too fast for me to catch.  Yesterday our first encounter was a sad one.  A lone deer, dead beside the swamp, too close to my Watching Log for comfort.  I made the assumption that the poor thing died tragically of the chronic wasting disease, thirsty and unable to cool its fever.  I only glanced, and quickly turned away with the dogs in tow.
Further, also beside the swamp, a beautifully painted turtle, edged with red, but upside down, unable to flip back, had died that way.  It was a perfect shell to show my students, but not with the turtle remains still inside.  I will wait.
As we followed the trail, the small shrubs began to show tiny leaf openings.  Looking up, dizzy with the height of the trees, we could see the beginnings of tree top buds.  Most of the woods is still sleeping, but along the ridge, the round-lobed hepatica pushed aside the dead, brown, oak leaves, and turned its pretty little purple faces to the sky.  Here, I bent close to smile into the only flowers blooming in that woods.  The first and the bravest.  They smiled back.
T.

Spring Peepers

What time do the peepers go to sleep?

When I woke before light,

they were settling down for the night.

and I wondered

did they say everything that they needed to say?

did the correct messages arrive

at their intended recipients?

and how,

if they sleep all day,

do they have so much more to say

the next night?

Are they

a congress of frogs,

all talking at once,

never listening to each other?

Is it a chorus,

all singing their parts,

and each part is the same?

Are they trying to tell us

to get off of their planet

and stop polluting the air

that they breathe through their skins?

To stop poisoning our yards

with run off into their watery homes?

Their voices reassure me

every spring,

but I never know

what they are saying.

 T.

Are you CRAZY? Or, a Walk on a Blustery Day

April 11, 2013

Today’s walk was not encouraged by the weather.  Wild, unpredictable wind blew the intermittent rain sideways.  I dressed for it, and was quite warm in my waterproof down coat, ear-band, hat, and hood.  Only my cheeks were cold.

The dogs drew me along, wet ears tucked tightly when the wind blew the hardest, but I could tell they were enjoying their outing.  Noses were busy, eyes scanning brightly for any movement. 

To my surprise, despite the rain and wind, the birds continued their spring chatter and calls.  The redwings, particularly, and the little finches kept up the little joyful sounds of spring beneath a grey and glowering sky.

For the brief time in the woods, there was so little color at first glance.  Because I am anxiously awaiting Green, I had to make an effort to notice the colors of a rainy, non-seasoned day.  The berry brambles, while leafless still, are a warm and deep red, almost purple.  A few have braved some tiny, green buds here and there.  The one and only hepatica plant I have ever seen in this woods is preparing its leaves, though I see no sign of the little purple flower yet.  But it is early.

Among the trees, there are two species still holding leaves.  The small oaks respond listlessly to the gusts of wind, with last year’s leaves limply the color of wet beach sand.  Sprinkled throughout the oak woods are the doomed beech saplings, their pale, paper-cream leaves still graceful and unaware of their certain future as the beech disease will surely come for them one day soon.

Just at the edge of the woods and swamp, I was delighted to see the pileated woodpecker with its large, bright, red head and enormous beak poking suspiciously at me from around a nearby tree trunk.  It treated me to two short flights before disappearing into the wet woods.  It was my first smile of the walk.

As we left the scant protection of the trees, my eye was caught by two soaring turkey vultures.  They wind-surfed the sky, dipping and gliding on the constant waves of air.  I envied their oblivion to the weather.  I doubt a sunny day affects their mood as it does mine, at least, from what I can remember of the last, long ago sunny day.  The turkey vultures are just as happy circling the skies on their wide wings, warm inside their feathers.  It makes no difference to them.

But aside from those few, the rest of the world had bundled up inside their nests.  Not even the squirrels poked their saucy little noses out to taunt my dogs today.  They were nowhere to be seen.  Nor did the rabbits dart from their usual hiding places, causing the dogs to lunge as one with me helplessly dragged in tow.

I can’t say that I would have chosen that walk today, if it were not for the dogs.  They need it, and I know that I need it.  My ghost dog came along, as always, dancing along before me, jumping into the flooded lands, sniffing about, but always tethered to me by love and friendship, never needing a leash, then, or now.

Another day, the skies are sure to lighten and the Green will come.  It will be easy to take myself outside.  Color will be everywhere, and there will be no need for so many layers.  I won’t have to strive to see the beauty as I did on this dismal and silent day.  The wind won’t be rushing about and the sky will be blue. 

But, I won’t have the world to myself.

T.

In the Night

She is no ghost

who follows close

who leads me on my path

In depth of night

I sense her light

more than a memory cast.

No trick is this,

nor mind amiss

I reach to touch her fur.

So close and here

just yesterday

a running, happy blur.

On path of woods

is where she stood

and still waits eyes aglow.

and still I see her

everywhere

she does not want to go.

My hands can’t reach

across this breach

but my heart can clearly see,

that gorgeous girl

my favorite friend

a vivid memory.

T.

A Day

A Day

As small, contained, and square

as a single pill-minder box.

A striped cat

who showed up on a Monday,

And stayed.

A marathon of movies,

or a long sleep.

A road trip.

A day

is shopping every store

but coming home

the same as you were before.

The length of time a clock hand moves

A calendar rectangle

filled with to-dos.

Something that begins and ends,

A first,

A last,

A time with friends.

A regret,

Or triumph,

A day is yet,

something to examine

A time to forget.

Bright skies,

or endless rain,

A lesson plan,

An hour gained.

Looking forward,

Looking back,

for what you hoped,

and what it lacked.

A day is spent

or given free,

an endless meeting,

a climbing tree.

A lazy float

down a river long,

A day is here,

and then it’s gone.

A day is now, plus now, plus now,

and we never know just how

a day can fly,

a day can drag

a day might be all

some ever had.

T.

Feeding My Spirit

March 10, 2013

4.6 mile run with the dogs

50 degrees, wet, slushy.

I took the driveway out to the road.  The driveway is very muddy.  I skipped and hopped between relatively dry places.  The dogs tried avoiding the puddles too.  The first mile felt easy and good to my body.  Later my spirit improved when I saw my first robin of spring.  When it first flew in front of me, the distance made it difficult to see what it was, but it had that distinctive, darting, flirting sort of flight that I associate with robins.  It let me get close enough to confirm its rusty breast and yellow beak.  Are there bugs available for it yet?  The rain had stopped but small trees hung with water droplets, and, for a moment, they looked like mini holiday lights all dripping from the branches.  I had to make a pitstop, and to do so, ran past the Watching Log.  It is breaking down so quickly now.  It holds memories of Tansy times.  The memories aren’t breaking down like the log though.  I wonder if the log will be still solid enough for my Woods and Wetlands class to sit on this summer. 

Chickadees sang me around the big lake.  They are so insistent, and their voices are varied.  I realize I can never come close to truly making their sounds.  What am I lacking in my mouth to make such sounds?  What is in their beaks or throats that allows them? I heard the crows too.  They made me think of the owl book author.

I was so thirsty, and with melting snow and puddles everywhere, my thirst was intensified.  The lake was a melting, shining mirror with ice still visible here and there.  When I saw the sap buckets hanging from the maple tree taps, I had a taste memory from childhood.  Nothing ever tasted better than the sap in that cold bucket.  I confess, I took off my bright vest and snuck into that private woods with the dogs to try for a palm-full of that sweet water.  All I was able to do with the lids firmly on, was reach in and dip my fingertips, but I licked my fingers like a child, and the taste memory was confirmed.  I wished I had a long straw to drink it.  I was never allowed much of it, in my memory of childhood, because it all had to go to make syrup.  How much sap can a maple tree lose?  Does it hurt the tree?  Do they have to alternate trees yearly?  I never thought to ask.  I don’t even know how to tap a tree.

Coming around the little lake, I had a sudden scent in my nose that I could not identify, but it was not of humans.  It wasn’t quite the smell of spring, but maybe the smell of warm and melting.  It was a sweet smell, and very faint.  I felt as if it came from the lake, but I am not sure.  It didn’t remain, or my nose adjusted to it.

Yesterday we had a bluebird perched in the shrub outside our window.  What are they eating?  I have seen several of them since January, and I can’t think how they are living here.  This one sat so close to the window for so long, I could clearly see and enjoy its blue-ness.  The color of its breast is not unlike a robin’s.

On Friday I saw a woolly bear caterpillar, all black, making its slow way across the lake road. It was quite large.  I do not know what it is doing out, but maybe the robin or blue bird can eat it.

I spent too much time indoors all week.  I did not feed this part of my spirit that was starving and thirsty.  May I remember to do so regularly.

March 11, 2013

The owl author talked about helping kids narrow their focus for journaling by using a paper frame or picking one sense or one element to write about.  Yesterday’s journaling was not the kind I usually do.  I will experiment now with writing it the way I usually do and see how it differs.

Heading out with spirit cramped and my mind constrained.  As soon as my shoes hit the mud and the smells of melting and trills of chickadees entered my senses, I could feel my petals unfurling in relief.  My body settled into the run, feet sending signals of life to every cell of my body.  Wake up!  It’s time to Breathe and Be.  My nose, conflicted for days with artificial scents, opened to a sweet, light smell of sap and moss and melting lake water.  Now feet on wet clay, and all of my internal antennae tuned to trees, water, birds, snow… the world that I belong to; I missed it.  The magnolia buds beckon my thoughts toward a coming spring, and my excitement to encounter my first robin rivaled and surpassed any knowledge gained in the last week in the world of friends, teaching, books, and learning.  There he was, yellow beak and distinctive flirtatious dance, and he was all mine just then, looking at each other in recognition.  My thirst for this absorption joined my literal thirst, and the buckets of cold maple sap caught my eye, reminding me of childhood.  I considered, then camouflaging myself, sinking into the melting wetness of the woods, reaching, straining a bit, hand into bucket and fingers dipped into cold sap water.  I know I should not be here, should not interfere in what is not mine, but licking my fingers, I am a child again beneath our maple trees, and the taste is the purest, faintly sweet and cold.  It is worth the transgression.  Soon I will hear the spring peepers welcoming the trilling red-wings in the swamps, and, like all springs, will loosen what is tight in me, will allow flow of words like sap to drip onto the page as I try to bring it all with me wherever I go.

Meditations on Water

August 5, 2012

Meditation on Water

I am water. 

I am the rain that fell on my upturned face last night. 

Life-giving, thirst-quenching rain swept up into clouds

To fall again and again.

To be dew and frost,

Snow and fog,

Puddle and flood.

I am the sluggish vernal pond that holds spring peepers and teems with life. 

I am rimmed with eggs and promises.

I am rich with swamp scents,

Protected by cattails.

I am the inland lake, 

sparkling with sunlight,

silver rippled surface in small breeze. 

Dark and cool in my depths, light and warmth in my shallows. 

Minnows breathe the air I hold.

 

I am the moving current

of the river and stream. 

My rocks are slippery with algae,

and crayfish tiptoe on my floor. 

The heron’s long legs pick delicately

along my borders,

and turtles sun themselves

on my fallen trees.

I am the Great Lake,

All colors and depths,

Turquoise and green,

Black and silver.

Lovely rocks tumble

With my crashing waves.

Wind whips me

While I am held cupped

In the hands of the continent.

I am water.

I change forms.

I stay the same.

I change colors.

I hold any shape you give me.

I have deeps no one has seen,

And shallows

Visible to all.

I am cold

And warm.

I overflow,

And I shrink away,

Becoming invisible at times.

I can be wild and loud,

And soft as a ripple,

Smooth as glass.

You may disturb me

Endlessly,

But I remain

In the end

Still.

Water.

T.

Running Away

Every woman knows the days that make you want to run away. All it took for me, today, was a single moment, a single line of letters, and that was all. Somewhere in the midst of considering how this could be accomplished, I found myself on the phone with a friend-who-knows-how-to-be-friends and I was complaining of how I don't run enough anymore. We ended the call and I began my ritual, exhausted, eating, and reading. But this time the book I was beginning was focused on the societal anger of women in general, and it hit me, I am not alone, and I CAN run away sometimes.
So, with only 2 pages, in, I laced up my new purple and silver running shoes and off I went. Tansy was only too happy to lead the way, her sassy rear end showing every bit of happiness that a dog can muster when her best friend has gotten her 36 year old, cellulite-ridden ass off the couch and put on those delightfully smelly running clothes.
Spring was waiting for me. She was even more beautiful than I remembered her from years past. It seems this way each April, when the willows cascade over themselves with greeny-yellow leaf drops, and the creeks dance along in the sunshine. Running away brought me to the edge of a swamp, filled to bursting with deafening spring peepers.
It was there in the woods that I found myself again. I found myself in the curls of the fiddleheads, the floating green duckweed, the smell of the change from oak forest to pine woods, and the white puddle of swan tucked away on her nest waiting for life beneath her.
I was no longer running away. I was found again. I could stay in that lovely woods or I could continue home, and either one was going to be just fine, because the woods and the springtime would stay with me, the packed dirt beneath my feet, the green and the frogs and the buds all sprouting away inside of me.
T.

Look Up, Look Down, Lock On

Today my students played a game of "Lock On". This is meant to practice eye contact, and it's fun as well. The way you play is to stand in a circle, and the leader says, "Look up, look down, lock on." and you all look up, look down, and then lock your eyes on someone in the circle. If they happen to be looking back at you, then you sit down with them. Otherwise, the game continues until all but 2 are sitting. I like to vary it by altering whether I say, "look up" or "look down" first.
Tonight in the ever-greening spring woods, I felt like I was playing a version of "Lock On" that kept me looking up, looking down, and locking on constantly! I couldn't make up my mind which direction to look. There were rewards either way, but if I looked up to see which bird was making that amazing sound, then I missed the frogs leaping from my toes to the swamp. When I looked down and saw that garter snake, I missed the flash of red wings that flew by my head. While I was gazing upward at the vine-choked trees, I didn't see all of the fresh wintergreen at my feet.
I felt like Owl at Home, when he can't make up his mind about whether to be upstairs or downstairs, and finally sits on the middle step. Except, on a beautiful spring night in the woods, there is no middle step. There are sticks to be thrown for Tansy, foam peanuts to get out of the swamp, logs to be walked on, moss to be patted, flowers to admire, mushrooms to examine, peepers to stalk, fiddle-heads to photograph... I cannot look only up; I cannot look only down. I need eyes in the back of my head and under my feet and in all of my finger tips! I want to lock-on with each of these, without missing the others.
T.

Use It While You've Got It

I could rant about video games and how very much I despise their existence at any given time. I can quote all kinds of statistics and research, and I can point to the evils of how it affects children so detrimentally. I don't really have anything new to add to that, but today I saw something that made part of my thoughts on this topic explode with frustration all over again.

We were at a backyard concert on a beautiful, sunny, 65-70 degree June day. There was a plethora of kids available, and a climber, swing set, and foam thingies with which many boys were busily whacking each other, which is What Boys Do. Better yet, in my opinion, there was an inviting green hill, away from the boring grown ups, but still in safe sight. The hill had tempting trees all around and nearby it, and the mystery of what was on the other side of the hill as well. There was an enormous and beautiful evergreen tree, which just begged to be inspected, and the entire front yard which was also a grown up free zone. I heard tell there was a lake nearby as well.

As I stood up to stretch my sore, cramped, out of shape legs, and shake out my joints which cannot be in one position for too long, I turned around and my How Things Should Be temper flared. Sitting, or rather, growing, in two camp chairs, were two young boys. Their bodies were folded forward and their eyes were glued to the cute, portable, plastic video games in their hands. The only moving parts were their fingertips and possibly they blinked. I was outraged. I wanted to hunt down their parents and lecture them. I wanted to march up there and take those damn games and chuck them in the lake.

I wanted to shout, "WAKE UP BECAUSE YOU ARE MISSING YOUR CHILDHOOD!!!! Your body can still move and jump and run and heal with ease and beauty! Get your ass out of those chairs and go PLAY! Make trouble, climb a tree, have a sword fight with dangerous sticks and get your ankles scratched and mosquito bitten! Go breathe deeply from running hard, and just WONDER what is over that hill! Notice that the sky is clouding up and that the air is changing. Know the difference between the different birds and bugs that fly by you. You have who-knows-how-much of your life left and you are spending this precious time in a virtual world that means nothing and will not benefit you emotionally, socially, or academically. You will be old someday and all you WILL be able to move are your fingertips and your eyeballs! Use your legs and arms and muscles while you can! Go tame Nature or let it tame you. Or at the very least, TALK to each other! Giggle and laugh and find out what other people are doing or thinking. BE a child."

But I settled for staring and making one or two disgusted comments, which probably earned me some more "negative hateful" reputational perspectives.

Now, I have to get my ass out of this chair and my eyes and fingertips away from this computer, and go talk to my husband and watch my bird feeder.

T.

A Sunshiny Morning With Mushrooms

Normally I take pride in being able to find beauty on a gloomy, rainy day. I enjoy going out in my color-splashed rain boots and rhino coat to do things around the yard or take a walk in the dripping woods. Yesterday I went for a run in those woods, with rain loaded leaves drooping into my path. I was able to delight in the mushroom celebration that is going on at this moment in the dark of the woods, but I wasn't able to translate that delight into written words. Some days are just dark, and yesterday was one of them.

Today I woke, finally, to the sun and blue sky. I confess, despite my disdain for people's inability to enjoy anything but "sunny and 70", there are times when it is all I long for. This moment, with sun shining through my filthy windows and polishing up my dark hair, warming my arms, I am miles happier than I was yesterday or the many rainy days prior.

Now I am able to bring the mushrooms into the sun. They don't like it, which is why they are all out there joyously (for mushrooms) mucking about in the black wetness of the undisturbed woods. I have never in my life seen so many nor such a variety. For all that I know about my local nature, I know next to nothing about mushrooms. It is good for my brain to wonder about new things.

Along and sometimes in the path are fungi literally springing to life before my eyes. Wet, black dirt one moment, and at the next glance, tiny, electric yellow caps, elongated and surely poisonous. Further on my way I am halted by the appearance of a literal forest of what seem to be sea coral sponges! Pale, yellow-ish orange, with all the intricacies of coral, and they carpet the forest floor in multitudes. Most common are the flat mushrooms, capping the ends of longish stems, and with varying degrees of white and cream, they often have what appear to be bites out of them. I imagine some small elf trotting along munching one bite out of each mushroom, as we might out of a box of chocolates. To my hungry imagination, the next batch looks temptingly like large, whole wheat pancakes. I run by with syrup in mind. Sprinkled throughout the woods are startlingly beautiful red fungi, with curled lips and thick bases. They are the red of fall; the deepest red of maples and dusky apples. The most obviously poisonous, (though they may not be, for all I know), are what I think of as toadstools. They conjure what Disney mimics in its rendition of movies like Alice in Wonderland. Egg-yolk yellow with bumps and spots all over, perfectly shaped little umbrellas. I am without a doubt that fairy-folk dance 'round these each night while I sleep. 

Later I will take my camera into the woods and try for a mushroom photo gallery. I suspect they will hide from me then, not wishing to be exposed to the world in the midst of their fungus revelry. I shall have to be very sneaky.

T.

Four Walls Vs. The Elements

Today my husband and dog and I went for a ski in the woods. We chose the "red" trail, which was new to us and a bit challenging in terms of curves and hills. At one point as I stopped to rest on a little, wooden bridge over a dark and cold stream, I just stood and breathed. I could hear the softness of a light snow on the trail, the sounds of Tansy splashing into the creek, and the flutter of wings in the lower branches of nearby bushes and trees. My cheeks were cold and the rest of me beat in time with my heart and was toasty warm. I felt like lying down on that snow-covered bridge and just becoming part of everything around me.

The interruption of Doug's cell phone was a text message from his youngest daughter who was "getting to go bowling". Instantly my mind was transported to one of those places and I felt like shuddering the image away. No wonder bowling is an activity I have always abhorred. For me, the dim, smoky, airless room filled with the smell of fried food, cheap beer, and people's socks is one of my worst nightmares. To be trapped without a window or light, beneath ceilings that feel as if they are closing in on me... I pushed the mental image away and let the white light of the woods enter me again, and I knew then that I will not spend a minute of my life in places that make me unhappy unless I am forced to do so. My soul feeds on the movement and stillness of my body through places that have plants, earth, water and air.

The older I become and the more often I find myself contrasting places that I love with places I avoid, the more I realize what is essentially me. Even in my own home, during the hours I spend between walls, I choose to have living plants draping over my arm-chair, ivy crawling up my curtain, photographs of Lake Michigan and tree tops, and when there is light to be had, my curtains are flung wide to capture as much as possible. There are no artificial scents to be found, and so my nose can smell the earth of my plants, the coming of snow, and the scent of my own skin, so that I know myself to be non-artificial and whether clean or unclean, I am real.

These things which grow and die, and are silent in their purposes, though their purposes are obvious, are where I find myself and my spirit. I am ever more convinced that this is the critical connection for all people, but I can only make this choice for myself, and watch as my loved ones struggle with all that is between four walls.
T.

Swamp Concert

I should not write incessantly about spring. I do it every year. They say that all writers succumb to springtime and the follies of writing it inspires, and so I, being oppositional, want to prove Them wrong. Perhaps truly gifted writers find and give inspiration on those dullest of February Michigan days when dirty snow piles are all that remain of winter, and grass refuses to consider the color green. I must not be gifted, because I can’t. If I write on those days, it is because something else has inspired me, and usually it is my own fury over the state of society or the idiocy of certain members of my community.
But Spring. I can’t help myself. Out There, I feel things that the poets have already used up. Alive, connected, thrilled. It’s a chorus of earth things calling, croaking, trilling, singing, exclaiming. Something even laughed, and while I’d love to think it was laughing at my leaky polka-dot muck boots, I don’t disillusion myself that I rank as anything other than a mild disturbance out there in the swamps. Peepers peeping away like mad. Cranes warbling somewhere nearby. Red-wings trilling and flirting. Cardinals, robins, chickadees all change to their spring dialect. I found fern clumps starting to swell, and a fallen tree that was collapsing last fall is now only soft red, fibrous dirt snuggling down to become new flooring in the woods. Ducks don’t seem to belong somehow, in their colorful, carved looking perfection. The wood duck sits awkwardly in a tree momentarily, trying to balance on those silly feet. I tell it that ducks don’t sit in trees, so it obligingly flaps down and finds its way to the water with a great deal of commotion.
Tansy drops her stick and bounds into the swamp to chase a surprised muskrat. Muskrat disappears beneath the water and swims her way through the murky stems while Tansy looks after her in surprise. What kind of cat or squirrel can jump into the water and swim away?
I see Deb’s tent is up, blending greyly into the tree trunks. She must be watching the fox den again. I wish I could take a week off from work and do the same, but Tansy would ruin the experience, I am sure. I wonder if the foxes know?
Where once we skated, now bugs skate on black water. The ice is gone and duckweed rims the edges. I spy a delightfully lowered tree trunk, curved to form a swing and just skimming the water’s surface. Knowing my boots will be full of water in seconds, I decide it’s worth the wet to find a perch on that curving trunk. Feet wet, but soul is content. I am sitting on the water and the swamp settles into its un-practiced, unharmonious concert again.
I am torn between wanting to share it and wanting to keep it to myself. I want to tell you not to miss a moment of it, but I want to own it exclusively. It is mine, and it should be everyone’s. Today it sat in my boots and under my palms. Every sense was engaged, including one that only happens in the spring. The sense to come home and write, to strive to capture what no camera, video, or paintbrush can. It is hearing the birds and frogs, plus seeing the green things, plus feeling the bark under my hands, smelling the black muck on Tansy’s fur, and tasting the wild chives as I walk past a tree festooned with white fairy mushrooms… it equals … This.

T.

Spring Weekend

Running allows me to see things I've never seen before. Each time I do, I feel a wonder that I've been privileged in this way. I question whether anyone else has noticed and whether I'm the only one who finds these to be small miracles? Just Saturday I ran up a hill of the tree farm. This is the same hill I've encountered dozens of times on foot and on skis. On this Saturday morning it was frosty outside except where the sun had been wandering. Running south, the sun on my left, the Christmas trees on that side cast perfectly cone-shaped shadows, and each shadow was colored in with white frost also in the perfect shape of a cone. In between where there was no tree or shadow, the grass was dry and clean. There was something just so cool about seeing those frost shadows; I've never noticed anything like that before.

On my way home I stopped to let Tansy wallow at the in-between where the lakes meet. While she submerged herself, I turned to look out over the bigger lake and noticed a pair of mallards courting. They hopped up out of the water on to the sheer, thin ice and I waited for it to break. It remained firm and they slipped and slid, waddling on their little, orange webs, across the ice, and I wondered if they wondered why the water was hard.

Later I found that the sun was still beckoning, so Tansy and I went back to the woods, this time just to walk to my Watching Log. Well, walking, sitting, and relaxing was my purpose, but Tansy's was to entertain me by repeatedly whacking the backs of my legs with her muddy stick in an effort to entertain me by letting me throw the stick into the swamp for her. In between tosses, I was able to sit on a dry patch of fairy moss and breathe in the coming spring. The red-wings are back, and the geese that fly over now have a new element to their calls. The ferns haven't yet begun to unfurl, but I can pull away leaves and old ferns to see the tightly curled fiddle-heads-to-be. I saw few bugs, and only one basking snake. I walked out into the swamp as far as i could manage on the old fern hummocks. Just as I intended to make the leap to one at jumping distance, I took a closer look at the branch I intended to grab for balance. It's a good thing I checked because it was entirely bristling with the sort of thorns you'd find on an old fashioned rose bush. I wondered what it was, and began noticing more and more of them. I've never seen them before, and without leaves I couldn't identify it. Do roses grow in swamps?

Tansy paddled toward me with her stick in her mouth, happy eyes glowing above the floating, green duckweed. I hastily retreated, knowing that I'd soon be the recipient of a swampy shake. This is nothing like a Shamrock Shake. I continued my walk along the edge of the swamp, sticking as close to the water as possible without skewering myself on autumn olives or the mysterious thorn bushes. I remember reading that life is found on the edges. The edges where land meets water or the edges where one type of habitat changes to another. These are where I focus.

I notice a tree with a tiny wild rose plant sprouting in the fork of the two main trunks. It amazes me how life finds footholds everywhere we let it. (Not that humans let it hold much!) I am admiringly grateful every year that even after such a long, cold, snowy time, life comes back. Every year it does this. All winter I walk or run in that woods and think, "There will come a day when there are green things here and I will be wearing shorts." and every summer I walk or run in that woods and think, "There will come a time when I am bundled into my warmest clothes and there will be nothing but snow and ice here." Both times are hard to imagine when they are so far away in time and experience.

While lying on the Watching Log, I hear two crows snarking at each other. Perhaps they aren't, really, it's just their tone of voice, but it seems cranky. In a pause of their conversation, I hear the laughing bird, (I don't know who it is), laugh at whatever the crows have been saying. It makes me laugh too, though for all I know, they're talking about me. I don't really have illusions like that though; I have utter respect for that woods. I know it has nothing to do with me and it goes on whether I put words to the page or snap its picture or not. It is impossible to take personally anything that goes on there. It just IS.

This is probably what I love best about how I feel there. It is a place and time that I can also just BE. There is no doing. There is no anxiety or worrying. Just Being. No expectations, no deadlines, no needs. Whether I notice that cool, gnarled piece of tree knot, it will still be there. All that happens around me has nothing to do with me. The red log that I noticed 2 years ago when it began to get softer, spongier, and full of the little lives that help it break down, is now only a fibrous sort of dirt. By the end of summer, there will be no trace of it. This is another wonder. Nature manages itself quite well without us.

I follow a deer trail back out to the human trail. I see where they have come down to drink at the water's edge. I love the smell of the black swamp muck, rich with growth. Soon there will be turtles and tadpoles. I leave with my mind, body, and spirit back in line, readjusted and awakened to what matters. Things are only things, and I too will someday be only a sort of dirt, ready to grow new life.

T.

Ice

The vista before me is defying words, denying a camera.  Each branch, each twig, every small stalk of any kind is sheathed in ice.  In some lights and angles it is a forest dipped in pure silver.  In others, the sheer clarity of the ice is breathtaking.  Sun glimmering off of every slick surface gives no rest to the eyes.  Every craving I’ve ever had for glitter and sparkle, every strand of tinsel ever draped; it is indulged a thousand times over. 

In the dark of the pines, the ice has brought down hundreds of small branches, and the scent of pine sap reaches me.

Following my trail to the tree farm I stop to gasp at the entrance. Large and small branches block my path, and I feel a certain reverence as I duck beneath ice encased trees.  I can’t help stopping to put a bare hand to the cold tree limb sealed tightly in its beautiful burden.

The tree farm is all that I had hoped for when driving past earlier.  I’d caught a tantalizing glimpse on my way home and was not disappointed.  On one side, each tree was normal, green and bristling.  But viewing the other face, like a two-featured mask, they were dripping with decorations one could never purchase at the store.  Every needle on that side, every pine cone and seed was draped in solid, sparkling crystal drops.  I thought of the phrase, “genuine Swarovski crystal” and laughed out loud in delight, realizing yet again how superior nature is to anything people might create or purchase.  At that moment, with my whole world spread out and shining, I wouldn’t have traded places with a queen.

T.