Brooding Rooted

I sit and watch. Changes come so slowly. So, vigilance is required, an attentiveness to minutia. There are layers of wardings erected between the watch and I. Thoughts, which flit and skitter fight for outward movement. Flesh that is too weak to hold attention, leans toward the walls of cracks; where even the plaster pulls from its sheaf and the dirty double paned glass waylays the eye. Enthralled by the changes: rain to sleet, to snow, to hail, to rain, the maple buds leaving their pointillist, rouge-lacquered shells, dropping like the wings of an emergent butterfly; I root. Nights of storm-slapped branches unfurl orchestrated by wind – How the maple now dangles leaves like earrings from the tips of the smallest twigs. Tomorrow they will open to palm the morning breeze and welcome the spears of Lilly of the Valley, as they emerge overnight beneath the mother tree. The deer have eaten the tender, green, tongue-rolled, delights of Hosta and Day Lily, but they are stalwart plants and will return. I’ve watched and watched but not seen the deer though I have seen their bedding spots among the mulch beneath the maple in the winter and their hoof prints in the snow. Today, I will watch temperatures are rising and soon there will be lilacs. First Published in Latchkey Tales 2014