Nurture your Nature

Winter walk in the snow to Orange Food Mart

Wet dab to the cheeks, mountains lost in the mist, a thick pale grey. Flag pole stiff from winds blowing from the east. Smoosh of the shoes.

Gold on red poinsettia ribbon wrapped round a pole at the circle of Hazel and fourth, festooned like a candycane.

A low note from windchimes on a porch behind a window hung from the porch with a display of translucent rock slices.

Bud of the shrub shrunk into itself; a yellow fireplug with a green hat.

Car engines, car tires on Orange Street. New tracks left through fresh snow.

Piles of snirt showing crags through the white. The shades of white, even shadows soft and light.

On the way back: small tracks of a squirrel; footprints fading under the flakes. Bags handles pressing gloves into flesh. A challenge of a black and white dog.

Setting bags down to write, the rustle of plastic. The steps to the Baptist church not cleaned off.

A pond cycling water, the rush of dark water. Small dogs warning me off.

What smell? As I try, I feel the cold of my nose.

What touch? I stick out my tongue. No taste, just a jab of cold wetness.

What touches me?

A sense I walked through this snow as a child.

A sense of how quickly yesterday is erased.

2009, January 1st. From Myrtle to Orange along 4th street and 5th Street coming back, Missoula, Montana.

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