Monday, May 09, 2011

Field Notes


 Remember that day,
the river drifting slowly south,
the trees just beginning to leaf,
looking like paler versions of their autumn selves?

You know how you have to
climb the earthen steps,
first down to the silver river,
then up to the leafy overlook,
and how, this time of year,
every miniscule blossom challenges
you to name it,
how the nose twitches at the smell of
disturbed leaf mulch
and damp earth,
how what passes for silence
is filled with bird song?

It was just that kind of day today,
a day of discovery,
of feeling the cool hand
of the sky on my cheek,
of seeing hillsides white with trillium,
and rock gardens jumbled among the trees.
It was as if the trees were listening,
and the quiet leaves,
and the ears of the rocks were open,
and the twigs bent close to hear.

Then the wind spoke,
and the bluebird.
Into the silence came a breeze-borne song.
The boughs nodded,
the river chuckled to itself,
the rocks sighed and settled into
the earth's cupped hand.





6 comments:

steven said...

pauline you contain the overload that is spring so sensitively and evocatively with these words. thankyou! steven

Anne said...

You have captured spring in words.

Brian Miller said...

love the personification of nature...the cool hand of the sky...the trees listening....really nice...

Pauline said...

Steven - it's SUCH a wonderfully overwhelming season!

Anne - thank you! I try

Brain M - nature seems very much personalized to me. I talk to all of it...

Ruth L.~ said...

I think of you sometimes as I wander... I wonder how YOU'D express thoughts about the beauty I see. You have a gift.

Pauline said...

Ruth - thank you! That's one of the nicest compliments a writer can receive - that someone wonders how a particular writer would say things. You have a gift yourself. I always see things newly through your eyes and words.