After it snowed and before it really started raining this morning, I went for a walk. More of a crunch-tromp-glide-stumble-crunch; the ice crust on the snow was brittle, and the snow was deep.
Here where it isn’t supposed to snow–or not snow much–we are frozen on the verge of spring. The ice is clarifying, isolating, magnifying, destructive. A branch off an aging cedar without too many to spare just crashed to the ground.
The hush of first snowfall is replaced by drip, by gurgle (near the creek), by the sandy patter of raindrops on ice.
A hummingbird zoomed over me while I was examining the white currant. I never saw it, only heard the buzz. A car or two crept past, fishtailing in the slush ruts. A couple of kids with poking sticks to test the snow banks; a couple of dog-walkers, hunched and damp.
Mostly green and white and shades of clear, if that’s allowed, but here and there a brighter color–red maple buds, yellow wintersweet, pink daphne.
The remnants of fall and of winterkill–a march of aster pods and stems in vigilant gathering; blackberry husks that never ripened into harvest. Pine needles arrested in the act of falling.
Still in between but not fully still, listening to the thaw.
