At last it is raining, the first sign of spring.
The Blue Jay gets all wet.

Frost-flowers, tiny bright and dry like
inch high crystal trees or sparkling silver mold,
acres of them, on heaps of placer boulders all around me,
are finally washing away. They were beautiful.
And the big trees rising, dark, behind them.

This canyon is so steep we didn’t get sun since late November, 
my “CC” shack and I. Obsolete. The two of us.
He for his de-funct agency.
I for this useless Art?

“Oughtta come by more often, Lewie, 
you get shack simple.”

big winter boom of the river 
crunch of boots on the icy trail to it

kerosene lantern even in the daytime      golden light

inside

I think I’ll bathe in 
Spring-rain tin-roof clatter of it 
all begins to melt away.
The bath a ritual here, the way it used to be.

Vat & Cauldron 
Kettle Pot & Tub 
Stoke the Stove till Cherry

Naked, he clambers over boulders to his spring. 
He dips two buckets full and scampers back. 
Filling the many vessels on his stove, he starts 
to rave.

I hear Incantations!
I hear voices of the Wise Old Men and 
songs of the Addled Girls!

Moss! Astonishing green!
All that time the rocks were, even.

Hopping on it, wet, that Crested Blue!





Robin bedraggled.       Warm rain finally.       Spring.