Late February

A small path stippled with the print of wind slurries, it runs along a snowy edge, scrub-oak nails down tilting stumps of ice. How old must the year become before a cockled bark sheds its wind-blighted hide? The creek is a stretch; I tread through a sleet blurred flurry, zag a rooted track to its frigid bank. Standing by the water, crow wings flying form my black overcoat, I watch a flotilla of ducks pilot a channel through small ice floes. Then the ducks disappear; we disappear together as a hard mist crashes-in. I hear the creaking of tree-hung clouds, the crunch of frost-bitten shoots, a grinding of raw jaw bones, on sapless sprigs. Only my hot breath pushes through a clearing of sky - all has returned with tints of sunlight. Saplings are carried by blackened limbs toward lichenous openings. And is that a greening moss - is that a young crocus leaf reaching?