A Walk In The Morning Woods

The icy air stings my face, freezes the breath in my nose, numbs my lips.

I didn’t know it was this cold out, I didn’t dress for it, I’m not prepared, yet here I am.

Finally the sun.  Through the trees, he touches the earth selectively.  Making divine, everything that glows with his yellow warmth.

I find the skunk cabbage I came looking for. It sprouts in the swamp, defying the icy snow that surrounds it.

Just across the path from the skunk cabbage, and up the hill less than half way,  I visit  the home of the porcupine  who lives in  the oak tree.  The one that tangles its roots with the hemlock.

Lots of fresh dropping cascade from the gash in the tree that leads to the tidy porcupine home.

And on the mound,  sprigs from the hemlock, and a bone gnawed by the porcupine during the winter.  A good source of sodium and calcium, as well as a way to sharpen her teeth.

Zinnia finds a bone to chew on too.

She is not the first to eat from the deer leg. I tell her to drop it and she generously leaves it for someone else.

The sun crests the trees as I head home.  I turn my face to his, feeling the warmth and divinity inside of me.