Flamingoes in the Woods

The last few weeks, on either side of the deluge, I've watched one of the most reliable signs of spring push the ground aside (never trust skunk cabbage, it'll break your heart when winter roars back).

Beauties have unfurled gracefully into shimmering green long-necked wands. The fiddleheads of ferns are everywhere. The most obvious, the Great Ferns, are cinnamon ferns that emerge from the damp earth in a tan velvet wrapper. As I've passed by these flocks of ferns they've reminded me of nothing less than pale flamingoes standing in stillness and unity under the trees.

Given today's warmth and their surging, lately throttled need to grow, those flamingoes will soon loose the long necks and demur curl of the fiddlehead to spread green wings above the marsh edge and woodland floor until the frost wilts those wings and the long winter's silence settles on the marsh again.