What’s missing from this picture?
This (before winter),
this (during)
and this (just after; all at about the same spot):
Delicate forbs frozen out, nibbled away and not yet re-emerged, ferocious nor’easters passed (we hope), and sintered drifts slowly yielding to higher sun and milder breeze. With a forgettable anniversary safely (?) behind, we look forward to the re-emergence of what is hidden, passive
Snow-Dalek?
or active,
Volodrome
emerging below
and above:
Though somewhat indeterminate in duration, the path from burial
to bare ground
is straight and reasonably well-defined.
And while the pond remains largely ice-locked, narrow borders melted by sun on the north side
and in-flowing groundwater on the south
provide just enough distance from four-legged predators and access to the rich pickings and pluckings of the looking-glass realm burgeoning beneath
to induce the return of a first pair of swans
whose mute mating semaphore and thunderous wing-beats signal that the last snows will soon pass into mist;
that the patient and persistent shall in due time prevail.
