Annual Spring Show

Flighting one another through the
spring-bare branches of the backyard
corner apple tree, a pair of bright scarlet
cardinals - as though reflecting late
summer harvest. They arrow the air,
settle and rest and their piercing
song elevates the atmosphere, overcast
and dark, sun hidden, rain imminent.

The dark, plump figure of a raccoon
straddling the fence top like a gravity-
defying acrobat, scuttles its length, to
disappear behind the full, old spruce,
en route to the backyard kitchen-waste
composters. It is a chill morning, the
milder weather we have been luxuriating
in lost between high pressure systems;
abandoned, our prolonged expectations.

In the woods, bedding grasses have
begun to erupt from the rain-sodden soil,
just as the sumac trunks have been
smothered with their soft velvet spring
mantels and the hawthorns and wild
apple trees begin to bud. From the closed
sanctuary of tight, green-needled firs
comes a lilting chorus of goldfinch
oratorios orchestrated for spring.

Squirrels forage busily, scrubbing
through yet-meagre, early spring
resources, nipping new growth from trees,
littering the ground below with their
mischievous off-casts, shrilly scolding,
thumping and racing one another.
Aerial contestants in their ritualized
trapeze artists' annual spring show.