High in the silver maple
to the west side of the house, up in a hole in a knob of trunk, a pair of wood ducks make their nest again this year. I've seen them in years past, coming and going. This morning I see them there again.
The ice went out of the pond on Saturday about 4:15 p.m. All day the water had pushed at the darkness, pushed the darkness to this edge of the pond, pushed the darkness to infinite retreat. The entire surface of the pond is ruffled by wind now. The temperature is about 30 degrees.
Yesterday's surprise was a coat of snow on things - wide, lazy, fat flakes that were much too slow for the sun. They were gone by 9:00 a.m. yesterday. The day warmed to nearly 50 degrees, a fine day for all of us but the snow.
A crispness at the edge of morning. I sit in the car in the driveway, looking north. A redness in those far trees again this year, a swollen wanting - wanting spring.
I stop to buy gasoline downtown. I hear from a neighbor we may have 2-5" of snow by nightfall. We are on the edge of it - rain or snow. This is Wisconsin, I said. He laughed.
North out of Fairwater, a smear of Canadian geese in the northeastern sky. They spread wide and dark, moving.
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