Rebirth

Spring is imminent, but the salt marshes are not aware, for the air is cold and drear. Patchwork of tan and gray stretches toward the sea, cattails and reeds bend east in a still chilly wind. Bayberry and rosa rugosa, blackened as if by fire, huddle together, backdrop for frost bitten sedges decorated here and there with shiny spills, silver pools left by the last high tide, reflecting the emptiness of a white winter light. And still the marshes sleep, waiting for a length of days warmed by a stronger sun to stir them from their long nap, for juices to flow into stiff, arthritic stems, for leaves to branch out, filling the marshes again with a hundred shades of green and buds of latent flowers. Once again the process begins, The unending work of rebirth.