A late hard frost hangs low
and deep.
February is ending
as tulips struggle
from the numb earth
in a blur of up-furling leaves.
The old crippled forsythia
unknots her yellow cautiously
above first-year daffodils,
spiking anxiously
in rows of stiff pale green.
This Mardi Gras
the Lenten roses burst early.
Only the purple ones are left now.
A starved doe devoured
the white ones last Sunday.
I didn’t have the heart
to stop her.
Last year’s scrawny tail-less squirrel
hanging bottom-up,
hogs the bird feeder once again,
while hungry chickadees twitter
in the boxwood, patiently
watching hoping.
A young possum
scuttles through the underbrush.
Sudden headlights blind him.
Spooked, he stiffens stone-like,
a bulk of petrified fur.
His pink tail is curled tight
in the thick bed of snowbells—
a dead snake skinned raw.
I another startled creature
hold my breath. Sinking into
last year’s limp grass,
I hide,
watching him
watching me…
Two wild things
at the edge of morning,
waiting.
