mares’ tails

a sharp-shinned hawk cuts through my trance

rain beads

on each numbered leaf in the study group

inside the deer fence

the 200-year-old white oak isn’t stirring

witch hazel clump

collects enough leaves to make its own woods

ground pines

craters have melted around their torch-shaped cones

dead locust bark

alive with color in between the cracks

bone-white sticks

trapped in the cross-hatch foliage new blue ice

green ice

caps the vernal pond it’s January

jade plant leaves

glow their brightest in the low winter light

corrugated pipe

an ancient beach

on the sandstone ridge we still stoop for baubles

goldenrod stalks

where bees hummed in August sparkles on the snow