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The sky is so blue on these crisp, clear mornings that it seems like a lake itself. A lake free of the grip of ice, warm and inviting. It is only March, though with April on its heels. Of the next ten days, the current forecast more than hints at snow for at least three. The swans have returned to Ely and Winton on the rivers. Walking seems to be a bit less treacherous than it was if you stick to the streets and leave the slippery sidewalks behind.
I guess that says something about our sleepy little town at this time of the year. Not a lot of traffic. This is normal, Ely is in preparation mode, gaining the most of our chrysalis time before we emerge with new wings and a fresh coat of paint before the Summer season. We’re saving up our strength and looking forward to fishing opener.
On a walk, outside the Folk School, I came upon the husks of last year’s milkweed pods, now open, with only a very few white fuzzy straggling seed strands stuck to them. This week’s photo was a stark reminder of how far away from my childhood memories I have travelled. Time is a funny thing and the older we get the tougher it becomes to both get a handle on it and come to grips with it as it sifts through our fingers, like sand. Ohhh. That reminds me of the opening for The Days of Our Lives. Ha.
Here’s a few lines that are both complete on their own, but leave the door open for an ending or perhaps a beginning. These are a result of a good visual stimulation, in this case, the sighting of the pods. Still beautiful, in their decline, sharp edges against the blue sky, and yet as a shell of what they once were, at the same time able to convey those full memories.
Looking at them you can almost see the first moment they burst open ready to share with the wind all that they had been growing and savoring inside. That’s us, here, in not-so-sleepy Ely, as winter lingers. If you stop and listen you can hear the trumpeting calls of 40 or more swans that now vacation here. The first wildlife to signal spring on more than a calendar square before the loons return.
If there’s anything that I miss from childhood, From the cornfields and the hoary oak forests, Dotted with the occasional walnut tree with its feather-like bark and horribly fragrant fallen fruit, green-ripe and ready, It is the milkweed pods. How they dripped with sticky dreams and liquid laughs; the soft and unencumbered home for clouds of future Monarchs, a kingdom along the fence of the horse pasture… How drying even with the slowest breeze; they would escape and fly away. ©Timothy James Stouffer #elystreetpoet 03262025 All Rights Reserved I’m not entirely sure where this one is going and I’ve come to realize that even though I might think that I know, I’m not entirely sure where it came from either.
