Solo venture

Today I went for a morning ramble, more to see what snow is left along the way, making a note of what routes I need to avoid. Luckily most of the walks are clear and where it wasn’t on one side, the road the other side was clean. I took a chapbook and an anthology of poetry to leave in a Little Free Library over on West Deer Creek Road. I like this particular library because they put up puzzles and quotes and have a lovely bench in case you need to rest as you browse. Mission accomplished I continued on my walk.

This was as solo venture today as Jerry had to go into work, something we joke about whenever he tells me. “How dare they expect you to put on real* clothes (*grown person clothes) and drive to your office!” I’ll say. And he’ll say, “Pants are overrated!” We are expecting that they will return to the office in some capacity soon. Now where did I put his lunch bag?

After returning from my walk, I set about installing our new mailbox. I’m not sure whether the old box was hit by the snowplow or the cold and ice cracked it, but it’s a goner. While I was busy with this task crows kept flying over. I’d stop and yell, “Hey, you crows! Hey!” But they just flew over. “Cah, cah!” they’d snap (Translation: shut up humanoid!) And all of the robins busy searching the lawn gave me that, oh have some dignity look.

Well, we have a mailbox; I do need to put the numbers on it. It was a beautiful day, and I took photos along the ramble and here is a little poem I wrote this morning.

The catkins are teasing the tree’s
bare fingers, gray glove-tips in the cold sun.

I reach up to caress as I would a kittens’ ear
a cautious rub and then I linger.

Does the tree love this as a cat would
or is there a shudder at the press of my skin

upon these downy points. It’s a wonder
I can hold this awakening; shouldn’t the tree

move toward my touch, curl around my legs and trill.