Landscape Perfection

There are those days, and they are
ample, and amply gratifying, when
the elements relent sufficiently to call
an armistice in incessant raging winds
and fierce rainstorms, to produce days of
fulsome sun, drying breezes and the
reassurance that nature shares
pleasantries at least as frequently
as she enacts scenes of distress.

This is one of those days, when a
furiously angry sky has been replaced
by the kindness of baby-blue and whipped
cream. The breeze merely riffles newly-
greened foliage. Dragonflies whip about
nipping airborne pests, wings flickering,
bodies bejewelled in iridescent reds, greens,
blues and golds. The forest understory is
beaming with blooming dogwood, pink
and white honeysuckle and hawthorn.

Down in the ravine, the call of a wild
turkey anomalously negotiating
unfamiliar territory. A hawk, circling
above, whistles, riding the tumbling wind,
its predator's eye fastened on the accelerated
exit of its alerted prey. The bright carmine
of a cardinal, then another, flashes from
tree to tree, their trills as priceless as the
overwhelming fragrance drifting
the landscape toward perfection.