A draft.

Returning to a craft I have not practiced in a long, long time. Reflecting on experiences in nature and pondering the mythic echoes that lie within.

A seam of the seasons

Beneath a dull grey sky, the intricate weave of bare branches marks the transition between cloud and stone-topped hills.

Pines scattered, their green stands out against the blue-greys and pale browns.

As a cold, soft breeze presses by with a sound as muffled and silent as the feathers of crows slipping between branches in flight.

Their occasional calls from one to another— refrains of the present and the past.

Below.

Between rock and tree trunk, broken by dry brush and fallen branch, snow piled on sleeping earth.

A silent stillness between thaw and cold.

A nuthatch, with its sharp contours of warm grey and black, makes its way down an aspen, probing the cracks and crevices in cold grey bark.

The sounds of their tippy taps float through the air and into the seams of gullies carved into the hillside, where the steep, stone- and boulder-lined slopes meet.

Water breaks between thawing, snow-covered slate, edges draped with icicles.

Each drips slow and steady; the many combine into a clamor, hollow tones echoing against stone.

Witness to the world reflected in their smooth, watery sheen— catching glimpses of Fair Folk slipping between the time and space of nature’s rhythm.

A downy woodpecker chips at bark high in the oak, showering bark to speck the snow—dark brown flecks—

Steady streams of cold water from the deep find their way between the seams of stone, the sound like glass shards stirred.

The dancing sounds—ting and pings— are as scattered as they are rhythmic, muffled gently against the silence of soft snow, a calling to creatures near and far.

Come drink the fresh water from caverns deep. Quench your spirit and your thirst.

A fox meanders between tree and brush, soft red and ochre—like fire in pastel on top of the packed snow from a long winter’s trials.

She comes answering the call.

She bows close, lapping up the water as the Ffynnon Spirit from timeless lore reflects in her amber eyes—

a silent message of nature’s awakening.