Words + Images

Near the Hudson River, I sit beneath a tree that has flowers like a dogwood, pale, soft lit by the sun, a creamy golden white.  They waver in what can only be called a gentle breeze.  Bird cries fill the air, harsh and pointed.  It is spring.  The birds search for mates and want to have babies.  A biological imperative I suppose.

*

Time passes.  I still sit beneath the tree, staring up into the branches weighed down by blossoms.  The breeze reveals the sheer lengths of spiders’ webs weaving throughout the canopy.  Of the spiders I can see nothing, only their work.

*

A woodchuck, of all creatures, bounds by with baby in tow.  A light golden brown shading darker in places.  It could be a beaver but the tail seems too wrong.  Earlier I saw squirrels, quite fat, and birds in all sizes and colors.  But of deer I have seen nothing though they were the creatures I had been told to watch for.

*

And so there it is.  The deer.  A female, white tailed.  As it ambles by I am reminded to practice what I preach to a dear friend:  Patience and all will be revealed.