Black Spruce

It is a beautiful morning of white sunshine, bird song, and sky washed white, gray, and palest blue. I consider it a nondescript sky until I try, and then I see that it is a study in these faded colors, smeared seamlessly together, gently illuminated. Crows are clicking and cawing. Little songbirds whistle sweetly. The oak is naked, but beside her, another tree sports golden leaves layered over drab green. They fairly glow against the sky.

​The concrete is still wet, saturated by last night’s rain, yesterday’s rain, all of the rain that has ever fallen forever, but is now gone. The berry bramble has put on some white blossoms. A rose is sporting a few tiny hot pink blooms. Woodchips swollen with moisture contribute to a delicious “garden after the rain” aroma. Green, woody, wet, these words come close but misdirect. The actual vigor and purity of the scent is inimitable. No art can approach it.

A Japanese black pine captivates my attention. I never noticed this tree before. Now it is the one I adore, peeking over the fence at me, and now, I at it. My neighbor grows bonsai. This one must have been set free long ago. Now it is great, though still petite, studded with juicy green needles that make me wish that I were a bird gripping one of its elegant limbs.

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