#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream
Poles, only, no skis or snowshoes. Hiking boots. The trail: one third dirty, mushy snow, one third moldy carpet, dead leaves, one third mushy mud. Easy to trip over downed branches, using poles for steadiness. Bundled up in layers still. Dreary sky. Low clouds spitting snow. Surprise – Trustees have planted brand new birdhouses overlooking the marsh. Skunk cabbage, showy, extravagantly blooming, in all the melt and muck of March.
“These pools that, though in forests, still reflect
The total sky almost without defect,
And like the flowers beside them, chill and shiver,
Will like the flowers beside them soon be gone,
And yet not out by any brook or river,
But up by roots to bring dark foliage on.
The trees that have it in their pent-up buds
To darken nature and be summer woods —
Let them think twice before they use their powers
To blot out and drink up and sweep away
These flowery waters and these watery flowers
From snow that melted only yesterday.”
Skunk cabbage near the brook
