Ephemeral

Well, what isn't when it comes down to it? The madding crowd's taste for the great outdoors sure was. (My auntie veecee was right.) My Person and I pretty much had the path to ourselves today. A steady rain has convinced others of the pleasures of being indoors.

But out we went, and though our way was flooded in places it was beautiful. The tree trunks were elegantly dark with water and a bright green growth is beginning to push through the leaf litter. Spring flowers like this bloodroot emerged in the warm weather that was as ephemeral as the flowers will be. As we walked along the river, brown and still as cold tea, we disturbed a pair of wood ducks. My Person did the disturbing; I am a practitioner of silent sports.

Seeing the beautiful and already fading flowers put me in a pensive mood. We might have sat quietly and watched the silver sky reflected in the endlessly flowing river but our usual perch was under water. So we kept going, our feet padding, the rain falling, the river moving and we both considered the brevity of life, the surprise of change and the enduring cycles of nature.