Overcast and humid. The aspen sapling in my yard sports three new leaves, still more pink than green. At the far end of the garden, a beebalm too is reddening on top.
quaking aspen
Now that I can see the quaking aspens, through bare walnut branches, I can hear them too: their constant whisper. Gauzy rain. A train horn.
White sky, bleary sun. Cold air, hot coffee. That equinoctial balance. Crickets trill, chipmunks tick, aspen leaves flip back and forth.
Now that the walnut trees are bare I can see the aspens down along the boggy end of the meadow—leaves so quick to quake, so slow to let go.
The wind persists, and now that the walnut trees are bare I can see the aspens by the marsh, their perpetually agitated crowds yellowing up.
With the walnuts bare, I can see the aspens again—now a flickering orange, like that tree in the Mabinogion burning without being consumed.
Windy and overcast, with a few flakes of snow in the air. Yellow leaves peel off the aspens as I watch. Two ravens croak back and forth.
A squirrel climbs to the top of a black cherry tree, samples a budding leaf and dashes back down. The aspens wear a new, gray-green fur.
With the walnut leaves down, I can once again see the line of aspens: still green, still full of ambiguous gestures. (Hello? Get lost?)
Overcast and damp. A heron flies over, and my gaze slides from its slow, calm wingbeats to the ceaseless agitation of the quaking aspens.
Another thin fur of snow on the ground. The four aspens in the corner of the field shiver as the sunlight floods their yellow crowns.