Return to Life Once Again

Bright sun on brown twigs;

Birds hopping for their breakfast;

February morn.

Ten pounds of bird seed;

So I'm responsible for

Ten pounds of bird shit.

Little gray mountain

Resides in front of my house;

Where did it come from?

The trees, road and sky

Echo their three dimensions

On this sunny day.

A small ice flower

Blooms above the rushing stream,

Stolid and frozen.

Brown hanging dead leaves

Return to life once again

With the sun's magic.

Barren steel railing

Has fostered a strange bouquet

Of thorns and brambles.

Shadows, trees and rocks

Cohabitate in the woods--

Silent harmony.

In a Snarled Embrace

The earth is waiting;

Fir trees bending in the breeze;

The sky's not falling.

A soundless outside;

A gentle humming inside;

A gust of strong wind.

Leaning on the fence

Even old poles have to rest

Like all of us do.

Two swings, one ladder,

Unused in the empty yard;

No shouts--no chatter.

Floating on water

Ice flowers, sharp and opaque

Refuse to dissolve.

Forsythia bush

Has caught a fallen tree limb

In a snarled embrace.

Invisible force

Bows and bends the yellow tape

Without a whisper.

Beneath the water

Dead leaves take on new life:

Illumination.

Stream Water Whispers

Walk of February 2, 2016

Bright the morning sun;

Warm, this winter temperature;

Active, the fat birds.

Amid the tall trees

Bundled forms disappearing--

(Kids at play again.)

Sun hits the dry leaves;

Doesn't bring them back to life.

Small birds keep feeding.

With his sharp eye cocked

Chickadee sits on the rail

Waiting his turn.

Two cats in the sun,

One is watching the other,

Watching  something else.

Stream water whispers

As it flows over shadows

Of tree limbs above.

Outside empty house

Empty chair basks in sunlight

Permeating it.

Frozen in the ice

Dead brown leaf is immobile.

Wind cannot touch it.

Walk of February 4, 2016

He is still trying--

Crazy persistent squirrel.

(No help from feeder).

Gray winter morning;

Sunlight has gone from the sky

Leaving memories.

Truncated tree limbs;

Fur remains of a dead deer;

Gentle cold breeze blows.

Yesterday's rainfall,

Today's swollen, racing stream,

New born glistening ponds.

Painted on dead trees,

Old pale lichen and new moss--

Colonies of life.

Next to blasted stump

Dead mother log gives birth

To green ferns and moss.

Friendly old stone walls

Keep nothing out, nothing in--

Spaces at both ends.

Four tall trees growing

From the same spot in the ground;

(Do they share a seed?)