Snow and Rocks Emerging

Here and there on the steep hillside above the beaver pond and its impetuous inflowing river, rocks and withered grasses are starting to appear again, revealed by the lengthening days and the warmth of old Helios as he gathers his strength.

There are chunks of granite as large as small residences, artfully weathered boulders and glacial drop stones everywhere, many looking as though they had been carefully shaped by ancient stone masons for some obscure building project and then abandoned.

I wander among the boulders and exercise caution - there are deep fissures here and there, caves and hobbit holes and shafts that go halfway to China. Whatever else I may forget, I somehow always manage to remember where all the fractures are, and I am never happier than when wandering here on a fine day in March's middling pages.

The sound of the wind in the bare trees, the ravens calling overhead, the song the river sings as it tumbles down to the beaver pond - a fine wild music, all of it...