Thaw
Rain on the ice — I’m melting too. . [ 1654 ]
Mist rises from an icy pond — each the other — a water wheel. What is illness but a place I visit when I believe that I’m alone? I’m healed in the present — yes, that’s what love has done. . [ 1613 ]
After sipping icy water spiced by moss-crowned leaves, the robin flies from the birdbath to the fence-top for a meeting with the squirrel. When they arrive, they find the sun already waiting at the spot. Welcome to my secret hideaway, says he. I’m surprised you found it. Then the clouds move, and the sun, the robin, and the squirrel disappear. And here we find the poet, not quite ready, in […]
There were high winds and heavy rain throughout the night. Now that it’s light, I see several more fir branches are down. Most are about six to eight feet in length; the longest, with its thick end leaning against the fig tree, is about twelve feet, and two inches in diameter. And so nature’s cleanup of last year’s ice storm continues. Later I’ll go out and have a look at […]
The rain isn’t falling in huge amounts, but there’s enough of it every day to keep things glistening and drenched. There are piles of ice storm debris to attend to, but getting to them leaves deep footprints, where miniature lakes form, not in the shape of Italy’s boot, but in Oregon’s mud-and-moss-encrusted hiking shoe. And so that work waits — or, rather, the worker waits, while the debris does what […]
The apricot buds are still closed, but not as tightly. Those most advanced are showing little puffs of color — this, after the entire tree was encased in a thick coating of ice during the ice storm. The tree and I are cosmic relatives. We are different expressions of the same energy. Here is a junco, a wren. Clouds. Wind. We all are friends. Rejoice, the beating of wings, spring […]
. . . after the storm / birds on fallen limbs / as if they have always been / here . . . February 18, 2021 . [ 1025 ]
While trees ravaged by the ice storm can be seen in every direction, there are a great many that have come through unscathed. The young cedar in our little wilderness is one, as is the juniper, which will soon break into bloom. The pine, the branches of which were so weighted with ice that they hung by its side, has resumed its airy, elegant form, with only one small broken […]
Street by street, power is being restored. Last night at nine o’clock, it was thirty-five degrees. This morning at three-thirty, it was forty-five. Yesterday morning, we viewed the destruction around town. The ice storm has closed roads, brought down wires, felled mighty oaks, split cedars, ravaged birches, and crushed cars and rooftops with mossy limbs. In the afternoon, the roar of chainsaws filled the air. They will be running for […]