Moments

Magnolia Blossoms

Last week’s snow fell, fortunately, lightly, to spring spiders’ draped cords, hanging.
A lively, green backdrop to crystals--so strange.
As if, at once, both winter and spring shared one space. For a moment.


In the shallow edge of Little Pond pool, where blossoms have turned to keys on bare branches, last year’s fallen leaves fade--red to black, in clear water.
Until the new and green rounds out their forms, they are both here, and not.

Maple Keys above

Fallen Leaves in Water
Red Maple, Acer rubrum

While in the woods, quietly resting, in the oak leaf-lined basin of Wood pool, dark tannin-stained water hides the masses of eggs. Soon larval salamanders will feed here, this pool overflowing with mosquitoes wriggling, tail upward at the surface.

Spotted Salamander egg masses
(look like potatoes on bottom of pool)

Mosquito larvae at surface
(click to enlarge)

This intricate puzzle of days,
layer upon layer,
fingers laced so perfectly, together,
lays moment upon moment.

Keys of Red Maple, Acer rubrum

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Promises, promises, promises...

Spring has kept her promise in two days’ heavy rain.
Unlocking the green on every branch,
nudging the graceful stems rising--topped with fat bundles, ready to burst.
And even in such a simple act as a stroll across the yard,
I can sense with every soft step, the fullness—
abundance waiting to be coaxed from the earth.

I walked on the night between them,
when a break in the clouds drew me up and out into the night air. With my flashlight catching every clean droplet, in colors so strong, wet beneath rain. Only the finest mist hung low, then, over the field, a lacy shawl gently wrapped around bare shoulders.
And, into a night sprinkled with stars, I stood between 2 owls calling.

Stepping out again the next morning, into a brief patch of sun, I find I was not the only one, busy in last night’s darkness. All across the field, wound thickly on tall brown stems, the work of small sheet-weaving spiders, snagging small drops from the heavy morning mist, setting this table with its finest.

A Collection of Bowl and Doily spider webs,
Frontinella communis

all photos click to enlarge

And, in the pools, the promise kept, of life’s return each spring.
From those who walk without a worry,
while I worry they will not walk.

Salamander egg masses in Little Pond Pool,
in different stages of embryonic development

Webs on Autumn Olive

Phoebe behind Pond

The circle of life

The parade continues.
To the waters, another wave of life.

Tonight-- the tree frogs. And, as several peepers still cry out, though their numbers are far fewer now, five Cope's Gray Tree frogs gather, plump pads on long toes wrapping small stems just above the water's surface, and voice short raspy calls into a warm spring evening.



This pool, in the weeks I have been watching, has shown me, each day, change.



Its creatures, developing in the transparency of water.
Their lives transforming behind nothing more than gelatin--a womb with a view.
Peering into their world--until, the spark of life within, looks back at you.

Where, 52 days earlier, their parents returned to this ancestral pool,
the next generation of Spotteds enters the world.

Spotted Salamander eggs, 4-14-08
21 days

Spotted Salamander eggs, 4-21-08
28 days

Spotted Salamander eggs, 4-24-08
31 days
hatching

Can you find the Jefferson Salamander larva
swimming at the surface in the small image of Wood Pool?
(Look for green-tipped gills!)