Walking The Winter Woods

Slept soundly thanks to lots of exercise yesterday. Walked through the woods for more than two hours at a fast clip, stepping quickly along the bike path that wanders through my town. The weather was springy, bright then rainy, then bright, didn't know what to expect. Easter colors of yellow sun shards, soft hum of purple crocuses, rumble of grey rain clouds and the promise of a new season.

Torpedo cyclists in black rubber butt shorts, rollerbladers with duck-splayed legs roaring by, babycarriage-pushing mom joggers, walkers chatting with slight Hungarian accents, runners sweating in expensive nylon garb, everyone going by, going by, going by, "to your left" they shout, whiz of wheels, I was often pushed into the muddy shoulders of the path but didn't care much, with my big boots on, no problem, had counted on an extended mud encounter.

Looking up at the stark poles of winter trees, in the highest place, an abandoned nest, sinister like a crazy woman's bun full of sticks, perched in the crotch of branches. These trees have no leaves, no buds, nothing but makedness of bark stretching tall and chopsticky skyward. Wind rattles the poles like lonely masts in an empty harbor. Every 100 yards or so, you might find a spray of ancient dessicated oak leaves -- who knows why they hung on through winter -- bleakly bleached looking more like a carpenters' blond wood carvings than actual leaves that ever lived.

Down on the ground we are thinking S*p*R*i*n*G*!!, oh so confidently, but up on high in a quiet lonely place, the bare grey trees can't reach far enough, hard enough, please, just show us some sun, please, get us out of here, they seem to be yearning and not at all convinced they'll survive the frozen mud patches, even still some snow paddies around their roots, they seem like they'd like to fly into the sky away from this winter wood. They look like the unfortunate fat kids in a gym class, asked to reach high for the pull-up bar and just can't make it, just can't stretch far enough, rooted to the ground, rather hopeless.