~The Edge of Winter~
Looking out across the lake all was white until it reached the deep blue green of where the forest began its accent.
There were no sounds, only the wind playing across my face.
More quiet then the deepest sleep and the softest of dreams.
And as I watched I saw the signs of last summer caught and held there and kept for this moment of release. A feather frozen in the ice, a branch that was at last being let go one
little bit at a time, as if slowly drawing
back a cover.
A butterfly’s wing that had been so valiant in
flight on summer’s winds had been laid to
rest for the season.
The ice slowly lets go of its grip on the shoreline. It must succumb to the heat gathering there from the rocks, and has no choice but to relent unwillingly.
Bubbles appear, sounds begin.
Tiny stirrings of spring’s promise that for this day it will have enough strength to overtake this force that only months ago was able to bury itself into rocks and break them apart.
But now winter is sighing. “I will relent; I will rest for
a moment. I will face back to the depths and release
my hold.”
The ice is like glass, and the underwater world can
be seen beneath it. All is eager.
A crack, a fall, and this tiny ocean reveals itself to
me as I sit and watch and listen.
There is an excitement in the air, a new beginning signaled by the flight of a bird past me finding a branch to sit and sing on.
Spiders scurry and stretch, lying motionless in the sun on their basking rocks, perhaps a favorite place from last spring’s beginning.
A fly warms itself, and all are on alert.
Part of earth’s circle is knowing that with their waking from their sleep, their heart’s desire can become their undoing.
I am transfixed as I see new life and old combine
and begin.
Mesmerized somehow by this tiny world here at my
feet, I watch as winter gives way to spring knowing
as the sun sets and a chill comes across the lake, it
will again make another attempt to grasp and hold,and creep in for the night.
The edge will be pushed back further and further with each new day, until there is nothing for it to hold onto for balance another night.
Only then will winter truly begin to lose it's struggle to hold onto all that it has held captive as a subject in its realm, and with that, spring can come and claim her victory and spoils with the sighing of it’s warm and gentle winds.
