A Morning Walk

A wet heavy snow that promised to be a blizzard has instead fallen early this morning like globs of that puffy insulation they blow into the ceilings of gymnasiums--buffering the noise of chickadees, woodpeckers and cardinals chirping out their happy busy-day song.

I walk along the road, let the dog run wild over the softening furrows of the field, spy an abandoned nest in the crook of a tiny tree, and grieve a little for the loss of nearby fencerows and forest giants hacked to pieces by county bushwhacking machines, loggers and farmers this past year. I try not to think about the dozens of marked "men" standing in wait of felling over there. . . 

I wish they could all just crumble slowly over time like this one; the sycamore I carved my initials into along with those of a blue-eyed boy in fourth grade. 

Choices  BY TESS GALLAGHER

I go to the mountain side

of the house to cut saplings,

and clear a view to snow

on the mountain. But when I look up,

saw in hand, I see a nest clutched in

the uppermost branches.

I don’t cut that one.

I don’t cut the others either.

Suddenly, in every tree,   

an unseen nest

where a mountain   

would be.

I wander slowly back into the house and am thankful for the warmth. The dog takes her post, waiting to bark at cars driving along the distant highway.

I turn the ring of the jam jar like a scrapbook page and day dream of strawberries as a fresh crop of snow swirls down out of the sky.