Rain-on-Snow

The forest has been well steeped
in winter, its floor packed deep
in layers of ice and snow
reflecting a season's worth of
successive storms and blanketing
the sleeping woods with its 
downy-white layers sculpting
the outlines of leaf-bare branches
and winter-dark tree trunks
creating ghostly humps where
stumps once stood. Winter not
yet prepared to leave, early spring
has brought rain to melt the
snowpack and shed trees of their
white tracery. The woodland ravine's
creek now rushes swollen with
muddy melted snow. On the
trails winding through the forest
hikers pause to hear a cardinal's
trill welcoming spring, careful
to remain centered on the
ice-packed trail, for a false step
sends the unwary lurching sideways
booted leg stuck deep in the soft
melt of the snowpack, then
sprawled upon it, like an
exuberant child happily wallowing
in the depths of its wet softness.