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| Winter Quail, Photo by David Schindler |
The morning is teeth-clenching cold
Crisp, dry air and sky so blue it hurts my eyes
The bruised purple sky I found starting off up the mountain
Turned to pink and then this cyan blue.
Rabbitbrush and sage block my way
and so I turn, follow a dry creek bed
and surprise a covey of quail
And of courses the roses
This one carries with it
memories of something lavender
A color, or a scent perhaps
frankincense and myrrh
And there is gold here all around
A cavalcade of colors
reds, and yellows, and browns
and he made him a coat of many colors
The snow crunches underfoot
as we make our way
Finding footing by memory
along a path we visualize
Winding through trees
hung with frozen berries the birds
will harvest in late winter
We’ll watch waxwings dart about
Slightly drunk on the fermented fruit
Giddy with the thought of coming spring
Half blinded by bright sun
and sparkling snow
Our eyes are grateful
for the soothing colors that
Nature sets about the landscape
Yellow ochre, umber, burnt sienna, sepia
Like the waxwings
We anticipate the spring’s pale green
fronds and bulbs
Morphing into summer’s dazzling
panoply of colors
And then fall, where we marvel at
Nature’s ingenuity
As her seeds fall, and float, and fly
And scattered about, await rebirth
Nature takes nothing away
but only changes
And even now, watching
our breath fog the air
We see shimmering in our mind’s eye
All the things we love so much
And pointing to dry reeds along
The frozen pond, call out
Come, see how beautiful.
