Small signs of life begin to slip into the gloom of January,
Like tiny tips of daffodils poking up cautiously under wet brown leaves,
Small green fingers reaching up faithfully towards an elusive sun,
Hopping robins dancing and chirp in the wet grass,
Celebrating the swelling purplish buds on cherries and plums,
Most of the red berry Yule decorations have been taken down by the birds by now,
But stellaria growing emerald with abandon,
Follows fat yellow buds emerging on rhododendrons, but there's no sign of camelias just yet,
Canadian geese as grey as the gloom of winter
Pecking their way methodically through the green green grass,
Honking at each other like cars and trucks,
The first perfumed blooms of daphne and a lenten rose emerge,
Even though Salix has not bothered to shed it's leaves,
And ridiculous purple asters still bloom rampantly,
While blackberries see no need to go dormant,
A gang of seagulls off to the left,
The careening currents of the mud colored river
Swirls angrily on it's way to the distant sea,
The bridge throbs, shakes and hums, grumbling under my feet,
Looking down, the underwater world stares back up at me,
The great spiral arms of whirlpool galaxies
Twisting and racing away,
A silent symphony of atomic collisions,
Endlessly twirling loops,
Mt Hood is invisible behind the clouds,
A tiny cormorant, dwarfed by passing sticks, floats and dives
Too small to be real, bobbing in the current,
Standing here watching all the secrets of the watery universe,
Seethe and whirl,
Oblivious to the passing traffic on the Hawthorne Bridge,
Only the trees seem to realize that it's still winter,
Although spring is beginning to yawn and stretch,
Stirring after the passing of winter solstice
Labels: winter
