Northward Journal 1981

Early Spring Climb

Our purview limitless
through trees grey and bare
as a haze in the forest.
The stream gathers
winter's last gasp
sounding like a hurricane mounting
and we watch the water
dash white-spumed
over green-lichened granite.
Beside the stream
coy unfurling of ferns
slits of white as
trilliums raise heads
to the newly-compelling sun.
We step around
winter's casualties
sloppily strewing
the forest floor;
fir and spruce
mourning spindly spires.
We even doubt
survival of the fittest
observing great pines
split - sundered
by winter's trantrums.
The ascent is less gradual
than summer's memory
as we sit on a promontory
overlooking the lake
where three blunt-winged
marshhawks laze on the wind
pinions etched
on the lowering sky.


Landscape

It's below zero
a mean wind
ripping the sky
the sun hard
and white
snow
whipped off branches
cutting faces.

We
slide into a ravine
snowshoe along
the frozen creekbed
tufting snow
in a gridwork
over nocturnal paths
of grouse and hare.

Earlier a thaw
freed the creek
so great ice pans
lie chunked on the banks
and we detour
hauling up
wooded slopes

cracking
winterhard branches
of balsam and fir.

Rita Rosenfeld c.1981
Published: Northward Journal, a quarterly of Northern arts