The Ambiance

Early morning streaked-dark clouds
obscuring the promise of this day did
not deter robins from their early
paeans, ringing the atmosphere with
sweet melody. The lassitude of the day
marked first by tepidly-falling showers
then the clouds, less obdurate
than thought, lifted, skimming the
lid of the sky and finally there
remained a pale, unchallenged blue.

The sun, free to arrest humidity
into a clear, dry balance for the day.
Nary the presence of wind, merely
a slight, relieving breeze to gently
part the fresh new green of ambient
trees. In the woods, the sharp
clear peal of a blue jay peels through
the arras of the surrounding forest.

Dragonflies filter about overflying a
lazily draining creek, while others
flitter above, through the branches
of trees, their bright green and blue
bodies caught in shafts of gilded sunlight.
On the forest floor, wild strawberries
bloom tight little white, yellow-centred
faces, among the starry ivory heads of
bunchberries, the lacy white fronds of
evanescently-fragrant lilies-of-the-valley.

A grackle flies, arrow-straight
beyond an ancient willow, its roots
entrenched deep within a placidly
ambling creek tributary. Within
the wide crotch of the splinter-barked
tree a squirrel waits patiently for
its quotidian treats. In the far distance
the faint clatter of a darkly imagined
concatenation of quarrelsome crows.