A robin arrives too soon (photo by Forrest)
Robins, a pair, pray tell, what do you do here now?
You surprise me with your presence.
I imagine the white world upon which you lit surprises you.
You look around in concern and I too wonder and worry what you will do, why you are here. Wherever you were, you began to think of spring. Perhaps it is somewhere else. I do not leave the mountains to see bare ground and feel the warm winds. I am told they exist, no more to me than a fairy-tale.
Did you come here with an oversight in schedule or direction? Or was it wishful thinking?
Here, you see now, Spring is far away yet, with the river just a crack open and peering into the black night sky, no more than a hint of light and warmth and soil and brown waters. Winter remains surrounding us.
What wild wind brings you to my kitchen window? You who have never visited before the first of April, before the dirt is exposed in places, before the earth and river begin to thaw, before the white sheds her skin to brown.
There is no place for you now. The only dirt I see from here is the flower bed beneath the west eve. Shall I assume you are just passing through, or will you try to remain?
What shall I feed you?
What will you do?
What called you to this world of white so early?
the sky promises another storm
I follow the moose tracks. There are no others so large out across these parks but theirs and those of my snowshoes. Funny how we both follow the same trail, a secure string weaving its way through the tapestry of the mountain, and we both cling and stay close, the wild and weary.
As I head out, blue sky teases, the clouds suggest they mean no harm, will gather no strength, will not amount to much. I leave the down jacket behind.
Yet as I stand out there, stark and exposed, the clouds amass to more, the wind picks up, my hands turn numb, and winter weaves her frozen threads about me once again.
I am both humbled and fortified in her frigid embrace.
stark storm coming