poem: fat robins

twelve fat robins
in a tall leafless aspen;
last snow of winter

Spring has already gotten itself underway around here, with early flowers blooming and songbirds beginning to return, and even a few early blossoms just starting to open on plum and cherry trees. But most of the trees are still bare.

Now today we’re having a rare late February snowfall, which will very likely be the last snow of the winter down here on the valley floor at least. This morning I was out taking the dogs for a walk, with everything coated in white and the sky a mix of steel grays and pale blues, when I saw a group of big fat robins sitting in an aspen tree in the schoolyard. They were like brightly colored blobs of scattered paint, or maybe strange Christmas lights in a pale bare tree, and were the funniest thing I’ve seen in quite a while! :-)