Ode to Wolf Hill Reservoir

photo by PSC / 2012

Ode to Wolf Hill Reservoir  

Your bench beckons, always welcoming; you are ever

promising new delights to discover; even dead winter,

blanketed by ice & snow, your gentle silence sustains

peacefulness of fir and pines, safeguarding infant spring.

Around April, tiny iris & yarrow shoots peek through oak leaf carpets,

forsythia abounds, Johnny jump-ups smile, pussy willow pops,

followed by an avalanche of violets, multitudes of Canada mayflowers,

plethora of periwinkles, lavish sprinklings of yellow trout lilies.

May and June bring butter and eggs, columbines, pink lady slippers,

wild geranium, anemones, mountain laurel blossoms, myriads of clover,

and few odd “volunteers” – tiger lilies, sweet peas and sweet Williams –

 garden escapees, immigrants, who come and bring along friends.

July proposes a profusion of cattails, jewel weed and water lilies,

glimpses of ghost plants, dragon flies posed on purple pickerel weed;

Summer proffers explosions of daisies, tickseed, black-eyed Susan,

extravagance of Queen Anne’s lace, all persisting into autumn.

October offers misty mornings; reflections of blue skies,

white clouds, autumn glory colors carpeting the trail;

fond farewells from the last of the daisies & asters, until finally,

all your fine vibrance bleeds back into gray November slate.

But then, somewhere along January thaw, enticed by dazzling sun,

I’ll be perched on your bench once again, rapt, absorbed by your

siren’s song, hum and ice crackle, snap of warming surface, beseeching

my patience; insisting Spring’s already conceived, only biding to be born.