the snow gone

white versus green figure & ground switch on the striped maple

mourning cloak

won’t your tongue get stuck to that icy snow?

groped for each other

& stopped just short of grappling wild grape tendrils

dead tendril

still clinging tight to a quarter inch of nothing

vernal pool

leafy muck visible through each reflected trunk

way out on the ice

some small dead thing with its attendant crow

“No Swimming”

meltwater shimmers atop the ice

the wooden footbridge

connecting the snowy streambanks is already green

the dead oak

has sprouted fat icicles where it spans the spring

early spring creek

icicles get wavier as they near the water

phantom road

spring snow

forty blackbirds gurgle & creak in the ash tree