I think of the trees

Sometimes I think of the trees in the forest
each rooted in its own spot there to live it’s life

in winter awaiting the flow of the sap
to unfold an array of leaves

none of which is in the shade
always reaching higher

then flowers nuts and seeds
and the sprouts carpeting the forest floor

and in the fall leaves
rustling underfoot making new soil

branches overhead
brattling in the breeze

fractal patterns against the sky
I sometimes think of the trees.

Zphx 20190221

A Book of the Seasons: Pigweed

 I would make a chart of our life,

know why just this circle of creatures completes the world.

Observe all kinds of coincidences,

as what kinds of birds come with what flowers.

Henry Thoreau, April 18, 1852

They come with the storm the falling and driving snow – a flock of snowbirds. February 13, 1853

One of these pigweeds 

lasts the snow-birds all winter  –

after every storm.

February 13, 1855

February 6. Pigweed and Roman wormwood are ragged as ever on a larger scale, and the butterweed as stiffly upright.  February 6, 1857

February 10 I hear the faint metallic chirp of a tree sparrow in the yard from time to time, or perchance the mew of a linaria. It is worth the while to let some pigweed grow in your garden, if only to attract these winter visitors. It would be a pity to have these weeds burned in the fall. February 10, 1855

February 13 In the midst of the snow-storm on Sunday (to-day), I am called to window to see a dense flock of snow birds on and under the pigweed in the garden. February 13, 1853

February 13  One of these pigweeds in the yard lasts the snow-birds all winter, and after every new storm they re-visit it. How inexhaustible their granary! February 13, 1855

March 2 See a large flock of snow buntings, the white birds of the winter, rejoicing in the snow. I stand near a flock in an open field. They are trotting about briskly over the snow amid the weeds, —apparently pigweed and Roman wormwood, —as it were to keep their toes warm, hopping up to the weeds. March 2, 1858

July 10.  The pigweed about seashore is remarkably white and mealy. July 10, 1855

July 19. In the cultivated ground the pigweed, butterweed, and Roman wormwood, and amaranth are now rank and conspicuous weeds. July 19, 1860

August 31. These weeds require cultivated ground, and Nature perseveres each year till she succeeds in producing a bountiful harvest by their seeds . . . Now that the potatoes are cared for, Nature is preparing a crop of chenopodium and Roman wormwood for the birds. August 31, 1859  

September 26. The seeds of pigweed are yet apparently quite green. Maybe they are somewhat peculiar for hanging on all winter.  September 26, 1858

January 2. I see, near the back road and railroad, a small flock of eight snow buntings feeding on the the seeds of the pigweed, picking them from the snow,-- apparently flat on the snow, their legs so short, -- and, when I approach, alighting on the rail fence. They are pretty black, with white wings and a brown crescent on their breasts. They have come with this deeper snow and colder weather. January 2, 1856 

January 6. I see tree sparrows twittering and moving with a low creeping and jerking motion amid the chenopodium in a field, upon the snow, so chubby or puffed out on account of the cold that at first I took them for the arctic birds. January 6. 1858 

January 15. Speaking of Roman wormwood springing up abundantly when a field which has been in grass for twenty years or more is plowed, Rice says that, if you carefully examine such a field before it is plowed, you will find very short and stinted specimens of wormwood and pigweed there, and remarkably full of seed too! January 15, 1861

January 19 At noon it is still a driving snow-storm, and a little flock of redpolls is busily picking the seeds of the pigweed in the garden. January 19, 1855

January  20. I see where snowbirds in troops have visited each withered chenopodium that rises above the snow in the yard — and some are large and bushlike — for its seeds, their well-filled granary now. There are a few tracks reaching from weed to weed, where some have run, but under the larger plants the snow is entirely trodden and blackened, proving that a large flock has been there and flown. January 20, 1853

 See also:

 A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Winter Birds

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Lesser Redpoll

 A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Tree Sparrow

 A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Snow Bunting

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Pigweed

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau 

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2025

More Poems that Strike Me.

         

The Cows at Night

The moon was like a full cup tonight,

too heavy, and sank in the Misty’s

soon after dark, leaving for light

faint stars and the silver leaves

of milkweed beside the road,

gleaming before my car.

Yet I like driving at night

in summer and in Vermont:

the brown road through the mist

of mountain-dark, among farms

so quiet, and roadside willows

opening out where I saw

the cows. Always a shock

to think of them, those breathings

close to me in the great dark.

I stopped, taking my flashlight

to the pasture fence. They turned

to me where they lay, sad

and beautiful faces in the dark,

and I counted them–forty

near and far in the pasture,

turning to me, sad and beautiful

like girls very long ago

who were innocent, and sad

because they were innocent,

and beautiful because they were

sad. I switched off my light.

But I did not want to go,

not yet, nor knew what to do

if I should stay, for how

in that great darkness could I explain

anything, anything at all.

I stood by the fence. And then

very gently it began to rain.

~ Hayden Carruth

Picking Blueberries, Austerlitz, New York, 1957

Once, in summer,

In the blueberries,

I fell asleep, and woke

When a deer stumbled against me.

I guess

She was so busy with her own happiness

She had grown careless

And was just wandering along

Listening

To the wind as she leaned down

To lip up the sweetnesss.

So there we were

With nothing between us

But a few leaves, and the wind’s

Glossy voice

Shouting instructions.

The deer

Backed away finally

And flung up her white tail

And went floating off toward the trees –

But the moment before she did that

Was so wide and so deep

It has lasted to this day;

I have only to think of her –

The flower of her amazement

And the stalled breath of her curiosity,

And even the damp touch of her solicitude

Before she took flight –

To be absent again from this world

And alive, again, in another,

For thirty years

sleepy and amazed,

Rising out of the rough weeds

Listening and looking.

Beautiful girl,

Where are you?

~Mary Oliver

Midsummer

Two yearling deer 

stood in heavy, falling mist 

in the middle of

the road leading in-

to town, brown coat glistening

huge eyes open wide,

caught in the headlights

in the first yellowish smear 

of coming daybreak

Twenty feet away.

I finally stopped the car

and sat still inside.

eyes locked together

in a curious searching

with those of the doe. 

Minute by minute,

we were transfixed, motionless

each imagining

the other. And then

the sun peeled back the dark clouds 

like a second skin,

And, in unison, 

the deer stepped slowly forward

gently, cautiously 

off the road, into 

underbrush that flourishes 

along the woods edge 

and vanished in mist.

Dazed, I returned to my day, 

to the work at hand.

And now, the hour late 

in the morning, mist falling 

again, I can still

feel my skin prickle 

under those beautiful brown 

doe-eyes searching me

like a lover's hand,

cautious, slowly exploring 

something deep in me

I cannot touch or name.

~ Sam Hamill

See also Deep Winter Woods

A Book of the Seasons: February Moonlight

The landscape covered with snow two feet thick

seen by moonlight from these Cliffs –

my owl sounds hoo hoo hoo, ho-O.

Henry Thoreau, February 3, 1852

February 2. Snows again half an inch more in the evening, after which, at ten o’clock, the moon still obscured, I skate on the river and meadows. at ten o'clock, the moon still obscured, I skated on the river and meadows . . . Our skates make but little sound in this coating of snow about an inch thick, as if we had on woollen skates  and we can easily see our tracks in the night . . . In the meanwhile we hear the distant note of a hooting owl, and the distant rumbling of approaching or retreating cars sounds like a constant waterfall. February 2, 1855

February 3. The moon is nearly full tonight, and the moment is passed when the light in the east (i. e. of the moon) balances the light in the west. Venus is now like a little moon in the west, and the lights in the village twinkle like stars. It is perfectly still and not very cold. The shadows of the trees on the snow are more minutely distinct than at any other season, finely reticulated, each limb and twig represented, as cannot be in summer. The heavens appear less thickly starred than in summer, —  rather a few bright stars, brought nearer by this splendid twinkling in the cold sky. I hear my old acquaintance, the owl, from the Causeway. As I stand over Deep Cut the cars do not make much noise, or else I am used to it. And now whizzes the boiling, sizzling kettle by me, in which the passengers make me think of potatoes, which a fork would show to be done by this time. The steam is denser for the cold, and more white; like the purest downy clouds in the summer sky, its volumes roll up between me and the moon, and far behind, when the cars are a mile off, it still goes shading the fields with its wreaths, - the breath of the panting traveller. I now cross from the railroad to the road. This snow, the last of which fell day before yesterday, is two feet deep, pure and powdery. From a myriad little crystal mirrors the moon is reflected, which is the untarnished sparkle of its surface. Here, in the midst of a clearing, where the choppers have been leaving the woods in pieces to-day, I hear the hooting of an owl, whose haunts the chopper is laying waste. The ground is all pure white powdery snow, which his sled, etc., has stirred up. I can see every track distinctly where the teamster drove his oxen to the choppers' piles and loaded his sled, and even the tracks of his dog in the moonlight, and plainly to write this. The moonlight now is very splendid in the untouched pine woods above the Cliffs, alternate patches of shade and light. The light has almost the brightness of sunlight. The stems of the trees are more obvious than by day, being simple black against the moonlight and the snow. I can tell where there is wood and where open land for many miles in the horizon by the darkness of the former and whiteness of the latter. The landscape covered with snow two feet thick, seen by moonlight from these Cliffs, gleaming in the moon and of spotless white. Who can believe that this is the habitable globe? The scenery is wholly arctic. It looks as if the snow and ice of the arctic world, travelling like a glacier, had crept down southward and overwhelmed and buried New England. See if a man can think his summer thoughts now. But the evening star is preparing to set, and I will return. Floundering through snow, sometimes up to my middle, my owl sounds hoo hoo hoo, ho-O.  February 3, 1852

February 4.  11 P. M. — Coming home through the village by this full moonlight, it seems one of the most glorious nights I ever beheld. Though the pure snow is so deep around, the air, by contrast perhaps with the recent days, is mild and even balmy to my senses, and the snow is still sticky to my feet and hands . And the sky is the most glorious blue I ever beheld, even a light blue on some sides, as if I actually saw into day, while small white, fleecy clouds, at long intervals, are drifting from west-north west to south-southeast. If you would know the direction of the wind, look not at the clouds, which are such large bodies and confuse you , but consider in what direction the moon appears to be wading through them. The outlines of the elms were never more distinctly seen than now. It seems a slighting of the gifts of God to go to sleep now; as if we could better afford to close our eyes to daylight, of which we see so much. Has not this blueness of the sky the same cause with the blue ness in the holes in the snow, and in some distant shadows on the snow? — if, indeed, it is true that the sky is bluer in winter when the ground is covered with snow.  February 4, 1852

February 14.  Higginson told me yesterday . . . of a person in West Newbury, who told him that he once saw the moon rising out of the sea from his house in that place, and on the moonlight in his room the distinct shadow of a vessel which was somewhere on the sea between him and the moon!!  February 14, 1857

February 27.  To-night a circle round the moon. February 27, 1852

See also:

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, March Moonlight

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, June Moonlight

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, July Moonlight

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, August Moonlight

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, September Moonlight

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, October Moonlight

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, November Moonlight

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, December  Moonlight

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, January  Moonlight

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, February Moonlight

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

 "A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality."

 ~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2025

A Book of the Seasons: February Days

 

A year is made up of 

a certain series and number 

of sensations and thoughts 

which have their language in nature.

Henry Thoreau, June 6, 1857

February 1

The river is one 

level white blanket of snow

 quite to each shore now.

February 1, 1855

February 2

The scream of the jay

wholly without sentiment

a true winter sound.

February 2, 1854

This coating of snow mysterious muffled sounds the moon still obscured. February 2, 1855

February 3

The skater sails midst

a moving world of snow-steam

as high as his knees.

February 3, 1855

February 4

The tracks of a mink

in shallow snow along the 

edge of the river.

February 4, 1854

Distinct otter-track by the rock at the junction of the two rivers. February 4, 1855

February 5

Silvery-lighted boughs

and shadowy intervals

belong to one tree.

February 5, 1852

Though on the back track

I draw nearer to the fox.

My thoughts grow foxy.

February 5, 1854

February 6

A mistiness makes

the woods look denser darker

and more primitive.

February 6, 1852

The coldest morning – all day well below zero, frostwork on windows. February 6, 1855

February 7

Single trees distinct

and black on the hill under

dull mist-covered sky.

February 7, 1856

February 8

First crust to walk on.

Now no difference between

rivers ponds and fields.

February 8, 1852

My vaporous life now radiant as frost in a winter morning. February 8, 1857

February 9

Though days are longer

cold sets in ever stronger.

It is midwinter.

February 9, 1851

The sun reflected from a hundred rippling sluices – melted snow-water. Listening for the first bluebird in this warm moist softened sunlit air. February 9, 1854

Drifted this morning. A very fine and dry snow about a foot deep. February 9, 1855

February 10

My shadow is blue.

Bright sunlight on pure white snow – celestial me. February 10, 1855

February 11

Willows shed pollen

how many aeons before

man was created?

February 11, 1854

Minus ten degrees. A blue atmosphere tinges the distant pine woods. February 11, 1855

February 12

Ice forced up on edge

like mirrors reflects the sun.

A fleet of ice boats.

February 12, 1851

The scream of a jay.

Cold hard tense frozen music

 like the winter sky.

February 12 , 1854

Sun shines in amid the pines and hemlocks as in a warm apartment. February 12, 1855

Sunlight thawing snow

 strangely excites a springlike

melting in my thoughts.

February 12, 1856

Return on green ice

to walk amid purple clouds

of the sunset sky.

February 12, 1860

February 13

They come with the storm

the falling and driving snow–

a flock of snowbirds.

February 13, 1853

One of these pigweeds lasts the snow-birds all winter -- after every storm. February 13, 1855

Walking toward the sun

rainbow colors reflected

from powdery snow.

February 13, 1859

The red of sunsets

and of the snow at evening

and in rainbow flocks.

February 13, 1860

The blue of the sky and

of the ice and water

of shadows on snow.

February 13, 1860

 

Yellow of the sun

the morning and evening sky

and sedge bright when lit.

February 13, 1860

White of snow and clouds

and the black of clouds and of

thin wet snow on ice.

February 13, 1860

Purple of mountains

of the snow in drifts and of

clouds at evening.

February 13, 1860

The green of the sky

and of the ice and water

toward evening.

February 13, 1860

February 14

We are made to love the river and the meadow – wind ripples water.

 February 14, 1851

February 15

The steady rushing

musical sound of rain soaks

into my spirit.

February 15, 1855

And another leaf or feather frost on the trees – handsome ghosts of trees. February 14, 1855

February 16 

This cold afternoon

I inhale the clear bright air --

the sky undimmed blue.

February 16, 1852

Two large hawks circling 

over the woods by Walden – 

the first I have seen. 

February 16, 1854

The fog is so thick

we cannot see the engine  

almost upon us.

February 16, 1855

My voice is distinct under the pines draped with mist – you hear yourself speak. Oak leaves show more red amid the pines this wet day – agreeably so. And I feel as if I stood a little nearer – the heart of nature. February 16, 1855

The musical sound of rain on the shingles soaks into my spirit. February 15, 1855

Look back from the road 

through the sun to white-pine tops

this soft afternoon. 

February 16, 1859

What we call wildness is a civilization other than our own. February 16, 1859

This crystalline snow

lies up so light and downy –

semitransparent.

February 16, 1860

February 17

The first springlike note at the stone bridge from the hill in the misty air

February 17, 1855

February 18

Now for the first time something in the air and light is spring-suggesting. February 18, 1855

A cloud in the west

changes the whole character

of the afternoon. 

February 18, 1860

February 19

Cold unvaried snow now stretching mile after mile and no place to sit.

February 19, 1852

I tend to walk where

I cannot walk in summer.

Swamps river and ponds.

 

Who placed us with eyes

between microscopic and

telescopic worlds?

February 19, 1854

February 20

The bright-blue water

here and there between the ice  

and on the meadow.

The northerly wind

roaring in the woods to-day

reminds me of March.

February 20, 1855

February 21

In new fallen snow

you cannot walk too early

to sense novelty.

February 21, 1854

Sheltered from the wind

I feel new life in Nature –

 season’s warmer sun.

Chickadee passes

the news through all the forest –

spring is approaching.

Snow on the mountains

now a silver rim to this

basin of the world.

February 21, 1855

February 22

Raw westerly wind 

but deliciously warm now

in sheltered places.

Such remarkably

pleasant weather – I  listen

for the first bluebird.

February 22, 1855

February 23.

Fine snow drives along

like steam curling from a roof.

I see the drifts form.

February 23, 1854

February 24.

Though snow covers ground

the quality of the air

reminds me of spring.

February 24, 1852

February 24.

Observe the poplar's

swollen buds and the brightness

of the willow's bark.

February 24, 1852

February 25.

Waves on the meadows.

Large cakes of ice blown up-stream 

against Hubbard’s Bridge.

February 25, 1851

February 26.

Morning snow turns to

fine freezing rain with a glaze

changing to pure rain.

February 26, 1854

February 27.

Bright and immortal

the now swollen stream has burst

its icy fetters.

February 27, 1852

February 28.

The westering sun

reflected from their edges

makes them shine finely.

February 28, 1855

February 29.

From Pine Hill the snow-

crust shines in the sun as far

as the eye can reach.

February 29, 1852

“The year is but a succession of days,

and I see that I could assign some office to each day

which, summed up, would be the history of the year.”

Henry Thoreau, August 24, 1852

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A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, February Days

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau 

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2025