Winter On Display

There I stood, quietly and still, with a frozen stare through my patio door. The awesome portrait of life, so dominating most of the year, has lost its lure.This time, it’s not the forest that I behold, but it’s the sleeping trees that I see. All agree that much of life’s greenery has changed, rearranged, and suffered pain. In my backyard, there stands a fence laced and hidden in a fading sea of green. Gone is the luster of summer and the colors of fall, but the season is subtle and serene. Refusing to go unnoticed is a plant clustered with tiny blossoms of purple flowers. Bright and beaming yellow blossoms, undefeated and undisturbed, adorn a bush. The bush, filled with life on this January morn, blends cheerfully with nature’s orchestra. The weather is gloomy and overcast, but no one bothered to tell my lovely backyard friends. A tree, showing no resemblance to its surroundings, is bare, stripped, and naked. She pleads for nothing and does not appear to be wounded, sick, or diseased. The once green foliage of summer that turned brown last fall is now gone. Its umbrella of shade baring leaves is now a haven of rest for the birds. Come Spring, life will upsurge, and green leaves of shade will emerge. But for now, the winter winds must blow and shake off all the leaves, and winter rains must fall while the full ensemble of life awaits the new season. 01302011; PostPS01162018, Contest, Mid Jan Premiere, Brian Strand