I TOOK A WALK TODAY...

Early spring is a time of contrast, when the verdant meets the dead; when life emerges from what looks like death, but indeed has just been waiting. 

On the bike path near the Spring Valley Wildlife Area, a few ephemerals are beginning to carpet the ground...Dutchman's Breeches with it's fern-like leaves and white, pantaloon flowers and Yellow Corydalis, all tubular and sunny.

Along this section of path that borders the river, lipstick buds of
buckeye trees make their appearance, the older ones fanning out like like elaborate headdresses, grateful for the ice and cold that broke their shells.

     

Further down the trail I take a turn towards an expanse of last summer's tall grasses, lured there by a field sparrow's bouncing song, as it clings to a stalk of dried bluestem. 

In the wind, all over this field, I hear the slight clicking and cracking of these brown and wheat-colored stalks. They stood like soldiers against the ice and snow of winter, but now bend in a final surrender toward their own waiting roots. Breaking off. Making room. Turning back to the soil. 

It is an April painting, a fleeting snapshot of lush, supple greens alongside the dry, hollow stalks of winter, as an Osprey flies overhead towards water. Try not to miss it. :-)