It's March, the ground is still frozen, and frost comes nearly every night. The days are rapidly getting longer, but the spring equinox is still ahead. Walking through the woods, you see the grey and brown tree trunks, a coloring mirrored in the ground litter of leaves from the previous year. There is no green. Not only the temperature but the whole mood of the woods is cool.
Then you walk down to the edge of a meandering stream or, in my case, to a wooded wetland. Here, too, the ground is frozen, and patches of ice spread between groups of bushes and small trees (mainly red maples and alders) that dominate the wetland. In this still, quiescent world, little centers of emerging life are visible, the first sign of early spring. What I see are the four-to-six-inch-high, hood-like leaves that enclose the flowers of skunk cabbage. . .
Both color and shape are striking. Some leaves are completely deep wine-red or maroon, while in others this background coloring is mottled with patches or stripes of yellow or yellow green.
It's after the equinox and the frost is gone already, but otherwise the description was on the mark.
Then back into the car, along the water into town.
An abandoned pier.
