mountain of pink clouds

mountain of pink clouds

higher than the highest peaks

hiding them from view

Rain in the mountains, so we stop early on our first day trekking in the Annapurna region. I go for a walk in the “jungle” with Yuba and Lama. “I have a guide on both sides,” I say. Yuba responds with a Nepali saying: “Bitter on either side, sweet in the middle.” He has been showing me native edible fruits, nuts and berries. His father taught him to write with ink made from one of these berries mixed with soot. He climbs a pepal tree to pick a white orchid for me, which I tuck behind my ear. We turn back when it starts raining, mixed with small hail. A gorgeous sunset highlights the mountains. One huge cumulus cloud, twice as high as the highest peak, obscures the range to the west.

Cattail Pond -- wild geese

Cattail Pond – wild geese

wait out the rain on one foot,

head resting on back

A small flock of Canada Geese wait out the rain on Cattail Pond. They look like they are practicing yoga asanas: not just standing but sleeping on one leg, or sleeping with their necks twisted backwards over their backs, beaks tucked between their wings, or bending their necks down to touch the water with their beaks.

cold rain -- on Jack's Pond

cold rain – on Jack's Pond

ice melting in dark blotches,

spines, tendrils and tails

Cold, late winter rain, after threatening for days. Jack’s Pond is still covered with ice, melting in strange patterns. One looks like a Cyclops from space or a neuron from a human brain, complete with projecting dendrites, cell nucleus and the tail-like axon.

Naked Ladies poke

Naked Ladies poke

tender green tips through a mat

of dead stalks and leaves

Winter transitioning to spring: freeze, thaw, fog, rain, snow, mud. Naked Ladies poke their tender tips up from bulbs buried beneath ground still frozen, up through a mat of last year’s flower stalks, dead leaves and black hickory husks. These odd flowers, also called Surprise Lilies, send clusters of slender leaves up in early spring, but the leaves die back without flowers. The second surprise comes in late summer. Pale flower stalks shoot up like pink-tipped spears, opening into a panicle of delicate pink lilies.

beyond the thorn tree

beyond the thorn tree

and barbed fence, three black horses

watch geese winging north

Solid grey cloud cover but no rain or snow. The Canada Geese come and go in small flocks of eight or ten or twelve. They fly in pairs, shifting from straight dotted lines to apexes to ragged clusters. At dusk they land on a convenient pond for the night, then fly on the next day. The geese fly silently, but even so, the horses look up as they pass overhead, winging north. Then the horses return to cropping dry grass in their enclosure.

blue clouds penetrate

blue clouds penetrate

pink sky with fragile virgas –

embracing bare tree

A band of blue clouds spans the horizon, trailing fragile virgas that penetrate the pink ribbon of sunset sky, but the rain fails to reach the ground. Between the darkening clouds and the lingering light, a solitary bare tree spreads its limbs, embracing them both.

light dusting of snow

light dusting of snow

on dark furrowed fields – wild geese

sleeping on pond bank

Rain yesterday – some of the big flock of Canada Geese on Osage Pond are feeding in the adjoining corn field. What does genetically modified corn grown with herbicides and pesticides do to their systems? In the middle of Cattail Pond, one lone pair of geese is riding out the rain. A light freeze last night put down a thin glaze of ice. In the early morning a small phalanx of eight geese wing northeast in a check mark formation. Time to move on. Then the snow begins, tiny pellets dusting the ground, highlighting the furrows in the dark tilled fields. A few geese are sleeping on the bank of the small pond, heads tucked under, but the big pond is completely empty.