the end of winter

this is the end of my first winter. walking out the door my skin braces itself only to find that the cold has gone...my mouth smiles at its passing.

the blue steely siege gives way to the sun. these gray-fingered stalks, these grass's tendrils - are they bones? have they lasted through the frosts, their fingertips the shells of months-dead flowers? Will they live again or are they clinched fists defiant, now triumphant over the long night.

a child turns the stone in his hand and asks "why is it pasty white on this side?" the stone settled in the hollow of my palm like the Eucharist.

inevitably a vulture lands on the far-off cross-beam of some power poles every time i come to this meadow. My eyes strain to watch the silhouette to see if it moves or if it is just some indistinguishable feature of the poles-No there it shifts and adjusts its wings rocking two or three times back and forth as birds do to balance their weight atop their clutching feet. then folding its wings again like a slow sigh...my fingers idly turning the rock between them until i hear it hit the little knot of grass at my feet. I've dropped it, my fingers having apparently become distracted with the bird themselves.