Winter Fog

Clouds of water vapour hang
like shimmering grey fabric
over the masts of the forest.
Late-January rain, above-freezing
temperatures have swelled the
atmosphere with fog, melting
the landscape's hills of snow.

Trees stand slickly black, but
for the newly-gashed snags.
Water droplets hang like a
multitude of festive glass ornaments
from the sharp needles of Hawthorns
and knobby twigs of wild apple trees.

The ravine's creek runs wide and
wild, particulate-laden and mud-brown
musically rippling over detritus dams
and under bridge trestles. The sharp,
dank odour of swamp gas rises into the
atmosphere driven by the roiling,
rampant release of snow-melt.

Mist rises from the ground like
ghostly reminders of forests past.
A great barred owl hunkers solemnly
on a limb halfway up a towering
poplar, shakes its sodden feathers
then settles again into his fierce,
hunter's gaze. Voles, mice and

chipmunks, be aware ... be fearful
and live to celebrate another season.
Still, a bold nuthatch presumes to announce
its chirpy presence, brightly nattering
timidity not its style, even in the
near proximity of a dreaded raptor.

On the far western horizon
a break in the solid metallic sky,
as the setting sun casts its swift
departure sending radiance to
blaze the sodden world below.