Early May Day

On this early May day puffs of white
seeds drift from the poplars, scenting
the air. Those puffs mirroring the
creamily-scalloped clouds skimming
a cerulean sky locked into spring.
Wind collects the puffs, creating
small banks at the margins of the
forest, like new fallen snow as it
accumulates during winter snowfalls.

There are waves of gnats, dragonflies
large and small, hunting mosquitoes,
bees bumbling through newly-opened
apple blossoms, and dangling white
perfumed cherry tree florets. We
move through a gentle haze of May flies
dispersing them for the ungentle
ministrations of the flycatchers
urgently swooping their tiny prey.

The slopes of this wooded ravine are
awash with a wealth of wildflowers.
The creek below, refreshed and
rushed along by the morning's
thunderstorm, winks back the sun.
A red-capped hairy woodpecker
busies itself on a rotted tree trunk.

The sweet, tender ethereality of
light-green haze enveloping the forest
has been suddenly overtaken by a
robust bristling of green leafage,
assertively screening the forest from
eyes not of its familiar rhythms.
The cardinal trills its brilliant song.