The Rising Season

Shimmering golden slivers of 
sun escape from the coverlet 
of ragged clouds assembling in
the late afternoon sky, teasing
through the leafless canopy to
illuminate the newly-hatched
water-striders rippling the stream
of the ravine, struggling to free 
itself from winter's remnants.


The world has paused in the
stillness of an entropic diorama.
Everywhere littered on the forest
floor shattered trunks, once 
mighty pines, striving yellow birch,
now decaying, stiff floral fungi,
broad and scallop-edged have
hungrily established bright colonies
in ivory, yellow and orange.

The maniacal laughing call
of a Pileated woodpecker shreds
the stillness in a nervous twitch
of foreboding.  Nothing fearsome
here, merely the appearance of a
primeval profile, large and regal,
blood-red plume of a hammer-
ready head, hunting grubs.

Above, an aerial ballet, hawks
returned to spring nesting grounds,
high-pitched screech warning small
furred wildlife.  Those incandescent
points of light and warmth have
roused to flight spring's Mourning
Cloaks.  All cause to cheer the
rising season creeping into place.