On this morning’s walk, I saw signs everywhere of the living. A few weeks ago, it was the dead — the spawned-out salmon, the skeleton of an elk, even my own heart feeling emptied somehow. (Christmas over, children gone back to their daily lives, the tree undressed and put on the burning pile…) But today — a chorus of frogs loud in the woods, these woods —
— and two ravens klooking loud overhead, full of intention (and possibly nesting nearby). Swelling buds in the salmonberry thickets, though it will be another three weeks (I predict!) before the first cerise petals ease themselves out of the sepals. And in the garden, the first primulas in bloom, low among the leaves,
and enough shoots of fennel to flavour a salad,
which might have a few leaves of red-veined sorrel:
While I was looking at new life in the garden, a tree-frog was singing hopefully nearby, though I couldn’t find it for a photograph. Every year they lay eggs in the old bath-tub turned into a garden pool and every year I find them among the parsley or curled up in the cool green garden hoses or climbing the window by the dining table. Here’s one from last year and it might even be the one I heard singing:
...Theresa Kishkan 