I have to go around the brook – it has spilled over the trail. Everywhere wet and muddy, including the violets. I am looking for news of the wildflowers and spring plants. I stop for a close look at a the moist stem of the gorgeous red fern, called lady in red. I muck around in the wetlands quite a bit, not looking for anything in particular, just looking. At the ferns mostly. They are at the most cheerful and funny stage of their growth. They make me smile as I walk along the trail, they huddle in little family sized groups. Furled, they are strange and fuzzy and very amusing. I feel like I’m in a parade passing these spectators. I have my poem draft written for tonight. It’s the Easter poem I started over a week ago and put aside when a different Easter poem presented itself to go first. Tonight the poem is well received, and I have problems to solve, and I see what they are. On the way home, along the back roads of the town next door, it’s late, almost 11:00, I’m tired when I see the flashing lights behind me. I pull over, license ready. He’s a tiny bit friendly, which gives me some hope I won’t get a ticket. He asks if I’m on the way home, and I say yes, and offer the part about on my way home from my poetry group. Oh, please, let that matter somehow, I think. He goes back to his car and returns quickly, returns my license, suggests I slow down. Just before group, I walked a bit in Cambridge. Under a thick red maple I stood in awe. Such gorgeous city trees everywhere I looked. High into the city sky. Reminding me to breathe. Slow down. I have three red maples, and two of them are quite young. I have been thinking of adding another one or two. Some day they will be as elegant and expansive as this fine one in the city. I circle around this morning so that I will cross the overflowing brook just as I return home. So, I can wade through, soaking my feet in my boots up to my calves, but it’s okay. I’m home and can dry. The water runs clear and cold and trickles lovely music and how happy I am that I did not get a ticket.