February 11

February 11, 1999

Out in the woods there are tangles of leaves and branches.  Leaves and twigs and bits of bark and dried arching vines.  Under the dry, crispy top, the leaves are moldy and deep brown.  Below that, they fade into the dirt.  There is a layer below that crispy surface where leaf and earth meet.  Where the leaf, formerly moving high in the breeze fades, drifts, absorbs, changes, gives itself to the earth.  And the solid ground becomes a wild array of small particles- dirt, mold, decaying matter, the earth opens up to receive the air and the riders of the air. 

The first greens of the season are here- creepers that don’t know February from March, they only know warm and cold.  This sunny early spring day just happened to come in winter.  Up above me a bird is making a scratching whining noise, now breaking into something of a cheeping, clucking sound.  The breeze is rattling the small green plants that have pushed up through the leaf packed surface and it brings enough of a chill to say “winter” but then it grows weary and rests.  The eternal sun is waiting and breathing

“warmth”.

Long fallen branches are fading away.  Crumbling wood that flakes off into the ground and it soon indistinguishable from decaying leaves, moldy, beautiful dirt.  All around these woods dying and birthing, one fading into the next. 

These tangled woods and deep underbrush are so beautiful.

This twisted laurel will always live in my heart.