"Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience."
Ralph Waldo Emerson
It's amazing that, a week after the last proper snow here, the woodland floor seems to almost spring back into life. The beginnings of beech saplings from last year push up through the damp, matted carpet of leaves, bracken fronds made it through but look exhausted, brambles feeling out as ever. The appearance of rabbits, scurrying away under thick entanglements of Holly, gangly and ever present.
The floating leaf carpet is deceptive, one tread and you could be ankle deep in oozing mud or water. Footbridges wobble and sometimes break, or plain disintegrate under my feet, if they are there at all. The brook boasts of springtime youthfulness, bragging where it's carved deeper channels, higher washes, while the sun looks wanly on.
As clouds turn pink the browns reflect that back, too, basking. Overhead the sounds of jousting antlers as trees clash in the tight knit space. Tiny rustles in the undergrowth, as while I am still and writing this, animals become bold or hungry.
My fingers become too cold to clutch my pen, so I release what I've written and let it go.
That is so beautiful....there is nothing more I can say.
ReplyDeleteLovely writing and imagery. I've forgotten what the countryside around here looks like without deep snow cover.
ReplyDeleteLove the comment about the leaves being deceptive, an all too familiar experience. You have certainly captured the essence of woodlands in your post.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who couldn't name a tree/bird/fungi if their life depended on it I'm always full of admiration for those that can.
Really like that last sentence.
ReplyDeleteReally like that last sentence.
ReplyDeleteLovely writing and imagery. I've forgotten what the countryside around here looks like without deep snow cover.
ReplyDelete