Rainwater pooled and collected at her feet, pulsed with an Age of Memory.
Maple & Rain — An Image
Gentleman Tree — An Image
He stood just off the path, observing his brethren arrayed along the downward slope of hill. Tall and hale, unbent by time, clad in elbow-patched tweeds. We exchanged wordless greeting, each unwilling to disturb the other’s contemplation. I did not learn his name, but no doubt, we will meet again.
Earth Exhales — An Image
Earth exhaled a drift of fog over compressed snow…today, Winter has returned.
Need — A Poem
Winter’s light –
drunk,
swallowed,
gulped;
Cupped in grateful hands.
Fingers’ curved
in grasping seams
through which
that thinned substance
too soon,
too quickly seeps,
fades,
sets.
Eyes closed,
face upturned and tilted
toward hastening light;
For a moment quenched,
replenished,
soothed —
dream of greener days
restored.
–C.Birde
Tree as Artist — An Image
A young Japanese Red Maple casts her blue shadow upon white snow. Trees paint in shadow, each work a self-portrait laid over the Earth’s seasonal canvas.
Witness — A Poem
Hawk and Sparrow —
along the fallow edge they flew,
with wings and talons slicing
that perimeter unseen.
A dance of opposition —
capture and escape;
Unison of hearts intent
and beating.
Flash of yellow,
thrust of taloned legs —
Sparrow cries alarm.
Wings meshing,
beating earth and air.
Confusion of color —
ivory, woodland rusts and browns.
But Hawk cannot extract his prize,
cannot pull it under, out, and up
and lift away in flight.
Release is unexpected —
talons unclutch and liberate;
Sparrow streaks to ruffled safety
within the bristle of nearby hedge.
Beyond separating glass —
among fenced and netted stones
of slumbering, tongueless garden —
Nature’s urgent tug and pull
unfolds,
and I am Witness.
— C.Birde
Snow Against Glass — An Image
Blizzard sifts and swirls without, accumulating insistent inches. Pressing up against the windows’ panes, collected snow peers inside. We are fortunate of our warmth.
Sweetgum Seed Pods — An Image
The Sweetgum’s cache of seed pods are heaped upon the earth in offering. Each burlike sphere contains two small seeds. Each seed retains the bright green, star-leafed memory of its parent, and all of its potential.
White Ash — An Image
In Greenwood Cemetery, the White Ash lifts sinuous limbs, etching the flattened plate of January sky.
Sycamore — An Image
The Sycamore’s distinctive and mottled skin is beautifully revealed once its leaves have drifted free. Often, I walk past this tree and its siblings, and have seen the trio clothed in Spring’s green and festooned with compact pom-pom seedpods. In Summer, they shed like snakes, curled sheaths of bark accumulating in the grass at their feet. But I think they might be most striking when plucked bare by Winter’s touch.