A Winter Walk

Ah, Winter, you often maligned
sometimes scowled at beauty of a season.

I get it. If people are only shoveling
or driving upon slippery roads,
some of your shine can wear off pretty quickly.

Dear reader,
if you are someone lacking either the gear or the gumption
to go outside in subzero temps,
allow me to elaborate just a little…

For starters, there […]

There is a pause now
this quiet Solstice time
before light slowly lengthens.

The temptation?
To count the days.
To hold our breath
until daylight stretches into evening
and early morning forces back the darkness.

What a relief it will be
these light-starved eyes
to see again
no longer fumbling in darkness.

Still,
somewhere deep inside
past resistance and reason
you know this darkness, too, is your home.

A place you […]

Thanksgiving greetings to all of you from The Wild Institute.  As I considered posting the annual Thanksgiving Wild Thought, I found myself pausing, not quite able to just post it as we enter into our 2^nd Thanksgiving with Covid19 still so prevalently in our midst.

My wish for you, whether you are gathering […]

The maples steal my breath
with glowing leaves the colors of fire.
Likewise the birch
golden against deep blue sky.

Walk among them now
on a crisp sunny day.
Inhale the shades of red, yellow, and orange
until, in your exhale, you could almost breathe fire
from the glory of the colors and scents of autumn.

We could be this—
such lovers of trees and […]

“Hope is the thing with feathers,”
so says Emily Dickinson.

“When despair for the world grows in me
I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and
I come into the peace of wild things.”
Borrowed, of course, from Wendell Berry.

When we need propping up
after, or maybe sometimes before, we topple,
it is […]

Spring Polarities

It’s the freeze at night, thaw by day cycle
of early spring that gets the sap flowing.
Freezing creates negative pressure that condenses cells in the tree.
Thawing causes positive pressure, which expands those cells.
The sugary sap of the maple thus flows up and down the tree.

Syruping is a ritual of spring for many
signaling the change of […]

We humans are quite a mess these days.
Ranging from blind rage to unsettled to terrified.
Maybe we’re always like this, but right now
we seem particularly public in our display.

What are we to do with this onslaught of emotions?
I ask myself that a lot these days.
How am I to hold this turmoil
in my body, my nervous system, […]

She’s not there all the time.
Just enough to keep me looking up.
I round the corner at the back of the yard
where the tall pines grow,
approaching, always, with hushed anticipation.
Just in case.

Sometimes she’s there
roosting on the limb
that must be the right combination
of cover and room to land and take off.

Even the poet in me struggles to […]

Early snow.
So many leaves still in the midst of autumn.
From radiant yellows to deep red, russet, and orange
really, the leaves were just getting started.
Then, big wet flakes drifted down.
All day long.

Until seven inches blanketed the ground.
Now brightly colored leaves sit atop the snow
while most of their companions are still aloft,
waiting for their time to release
and […]

Dressed in rain gear to deflect burrs
I plunge into the woods that border my yard.
It’s an annual event
trying to remove the burrs from the ground
which is far easier than from the dog.

Burrs might well take over the world
so designed are they for multiplying.
Still, I do my best to quell the growth
hoping for a cool-ish day […]