February 2: Momentary flash forward

Today, Groundhog Day, around here at least there wasn't a lot of shadow-casting. Does that mean spring is coming soon?

This afternoon I was engaged in an online course coordinated by the Middlebury Alumni College on the poetry of Robert Frost. This class, we read and discussed his poems "Mowing" and "Spring Pools," and the latter poem in particular moved me forward a couple of months and set me right down in another season for a moment, next to a vernal pool filled with water "from snow that only melted yesterday." There's a vernal pool near the Ducktrap River where each spring we look for salamander and frog eggs. Some years there's still a skim of ice along the edges when we notice the gelatinous masses hovering in the deeper water above a thick layer of sodden dead leaves. Trout lilies bloom nearby--the "watery flowers" to reflect in the "flowery waters"--and you can almost feel the energy in the trees as the sap rises and the "pent-up buds" begin to swell and open. Yes, it might be only 40 degrees, but you know spring is there all around you, in the water and in the woods.

Just a few more weeks...

It seemed an appropriate poem to study on Groundhog Day, also the pagan holiday of Imbolc, falling halfway between Winter Solstice and Vernal Equinox. We celebrate the first stirrings of spring as the days lengthen beyond ten hours of light, knowing that around here "spring" doesn't always mean warm sunshine and daffodils. A cold pool in the woods, filled with frog eggs and surrounded by skunk cabbage--or just reading about such a pool!--will suffice.

Under its ice shell
vernal pool waits. Days lengthen.
Frogs stir in their sleep.

January 12: Snow, of course

What else is anyone talking about today? We finally got the big storm we were supposed to get, with heavy wet snow flakes turning into icy, face-stinging pellets by day's end. Driving was treacherous. Just walking up to my front door was treacherous when I slipped and almost fell. I had to shovel my way into the driveway, and now wet garments drape all the heating vents. It's a typical Maine winter snow storm. Now it feels like a typical Maine winter. It only took till the second week of January. But it makes me all the more thankful I'm off to Florida in a few days.

Snow heavy with ice.
As Frost said, "Ice would suffice."
He meant the world's end.

December 9: Storm

Another Robert Frost poem:

Fire and Ice
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.


I think of this poem not because of any sense of the apocalypse, but because as I type these words, pellets of snow and ice are being driven by heavy winds against my window. Outside all is dark and inhospitable. I can hear the rumble of a plow in a nearby driveway. Our first big storm of the season. Those who live in northern states would concur, I think, that "for destruction ice...would suffice." 


After I'm inside,
wind drives snow across my path,
obscures my footprints.

December 6: Crow in Snow

One of my favorite short poems, by Robert Frost:

Dust of Snow

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
from a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

This morning I raised the bedroom blind to a shining white world, sun on snow, every tree coated with a thin layer of the fluffy stuff. I paused to admire the first snowfall of the season and the sparkling river running through it. Then I noticed some movement on our neighbor's lower lawn: a crow sat in the snow. As I watched, it dipped its body into the snow and flapped its wings. Was it trying to eat something under the snow? Was it bathing? We got about 3-4 inches of snow last night, so the snow came up to the crow's belly. It barreled through the snow a short way and dipped itself in again. A little further along, it repeated this action, wings akimbo. I called my husband in to see, and he agreed that the crow seemed to be either snow-bathing or simply playing. Ravens have been observed sliding down snow banks, an activity for which there can be no practical value, so why not a crow that's delighting in the first snow?

After a few minutes the crow flew up into a tree, shaking off the snow on the branch where it landed. The action reminded me, of course, of the Frost poem above. And in doing so, made me realize that this crow had gotten me through the hardest part of my day--getting up in the morning--with a smile on my face.

Crow bathing in snow--
you too feel the simple joy
of winter's first touch.

As I type this, a crow has several times flapped around one spot on a tree branch, then flown off. The branches obscure a clear view. I have no idea what it's doing. Through the binoculars, all I can see now is a nuthatch winding down the trunk. Who knows what goes through the minds of these creatures with whom we share our world? ... And now, a crow (the same one?) has just flown upriver carrying something large and white in its bill.