January 30, 2010

Late January. I walk the forest as if for the first time. Underfoot the trails are mostly hard-packed mud overlain with broken twigs. Last year's leaves have been kicked to each side, elongate brown mounds framing my steps.

I walk, head down, listening, looking. If this were the first time I walked here I would see a landscape of green and brown and grey, somber, a nun's habit. I would hear the leaf blowers growling in the western neighborhoods, local dogs barking, airplanes delivering their passengers to the airport just to the south and west.

But I have walked these paths for years, and I know where to look. The first Hazlenut catkins appear in the bright place on the edge of the southern meadows. In a week or two the slightest touch will scatter their pollen in every direction and I will wheeze and happily grab for my inhaler.

Winter Wren sings for the first time this season, an operatic trill that belies his size. I "pssh" in response and he hops from under a Sword Fern to face me, scolding. Above us a pair of Bald Eagles copulate. Noisily.

Winter is over.

Photos copyright 2010, C. M. Alexander