February 2022 - A Creek Corner

This morning I was wakened by a rather portly robin scuttering along the gutter outside my window.  Winter is almost gone.  Now I sit on a sun-warmed stone with my toes in an icy, chattering creek, sunlight streams through leafless trees, and there are songbirds calling from every side.  Though another frost or four will certainly still come, it feels safe to say that spring is on the move.

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I saw a tree, all gaunt and grey,
As mindful of a winter’s day:
And there a lonely bird did sit
Upon the topmost branch of it,
Who to my thought did sweeter sing
Than any minstrel of a king.

- Geoffrey Bache Smith

My thoughtful spot today is a lovely corner off a trail behind a neighborhood.  Long ago some kind soul set stepping stones across this busy creek, or at least it looks as thought is was long ago, for the stones are very deeply set and covered in moss.  And there is a quiet, thoughtful bench, and a picnic table, slightly the worse for weather, yet somehow made friendlier by that.

Then was winter shaken, and fair was the earth's embrace.

 - Beowulf, ll. 1136b-1137a

Green leaves are peering through the buds on a wild rose bush (Rosa canina), which is currently also home to a little nest.  It is clearly last year's handiwork, but I've no doubt it will be made shipshape by new inhabitants in the near future.

Chickweed (Stellaria media)  and henbit (Lamium amplexicaule) and blue creeping speedwell (Veronica repens), nestled deep in oft-overlooked obscurity, herald in their tiny, joyful way the sunny days and warmth ahead.  And a single, bright faced dandelion (Taraxacum officinale,) on a tiny stem is the first brave one of its kind to emerge in this little thoughtful spot.

Nothing ever seems impossible in Spring, you know.

- L. M. Montgomery

The creek running over the stepping stones almost drowns out the construction trucks near by.  There are millions of dancing stars on its surface, and gleeful little clusters of bubbles at the corners of the rocks.  There is a sunbeam on the field across the creek, and I must follow it...