Bright lanterns glowing

Bright lanterns glowing

Attracting squirrels and finches

For early winter supper

When the crows robbed the robin nest

Does the aspen recall

When the crows

Robbed the robin nest?

All over the face of Gaia

For the ten thousandth time

All over the face of Gaia

Crafting next seasons flowers

Winter beauty just holding on

Winter beauty clinging

To branches and buds

But when the winter wind?

What does the eagle covet in winter?

In deep dark winter

Does the eagle covet an atoll

Covered in green?

Place known only by caribou and mountain goat

Only the caribou

And the mountain goat

Can know this place

From the brood of Goldfinches?

From the brood of Goldfinches

Hatched in my Saskatoon’s

Only last spring?

Bright beautiful berries

Bright beautiful berries

Soon to be enjoyed

By a pair of Northern Flickers

Do you feel winter cheer?

Do you feel winter cheer

Sent from the beautiful bundle

Of tiny red onions?

Welcome to winter!

Welcome to winter!

Ice and snow and cold

With sun and love and cheer

Beauty ready to go

Beauty ready to go

Can be delivered by birds

But most likely by wind

Why are the black seeds hidden by winter?

Are the black seeds veiled

So I more clearly see

The beauty of the petals?

Will the snow nest protect the flower?

Will the delicate snow nest

Nurture this beauty

From the ravages of winter?

Beautified feather plume flower leaf

Was it autumn frosts that

Beautified the leaves of the

Feather plume flower?

Bronze Autumn Sedums eaten by deer

Bronze Autumn Sedums

Frozen flowers taken

By the soft mouths of deer

Food for the squirrel?

The known unknown:

Food for the squirrel

Or next spring’s seedling?

Beauty for the winter spider

Why does the spider

Spend a bright winter day

Cocooned in this beauty?

Who is smoking salmon?

On a grassland bench

Above the Fraser River

Who is smoking salmon?

But have the Waxwings seen the deer tracks?

Everlasting beauty?

But have the Waxwings

Seen the deer tracks?

Goldfinches will eat the Paper Birch seeds first

Will only be eaten

When the Goldfinches

Finish the Birch seeds?

Was it the Cedar Waxwing who left the last berry?

Was it the Cedar Waxwing

Who was gracious enough

To leave the last berry?

Is that the sound of a cicada chorus?

Brilliant winter day

Surrounded by snow and ice

Is that the sound of a cicada chorus?

Resting in the boughs of a pine

The warm sheltered feeling

From softly resting

In the boughs of a pine

Samara beauty

Form and function

To fly and scatter

All I see is beauty!

Reflections in water drops

Reflections in water drops

Soon to be captured in ice

And not revealed ‘till spring

A winter gift

This gift of winter

From the fragrance of flowers

And the cacophony of bees? 

Restoring summer beauty

A warm Chinook

Brought winter rain

To restore summer beauty

Beautiful winter berries

Long bright warm days

And soothing summer sun

Did not craft this beauty

Goldfinch enjoying Paper Birch Seeds in winter

Comfort and cheer

From a beak full of birch Seeds

And feathers warmed by the sun

Stealing sun from the Moonshine Yarrow

But who would dare

Steal warm winter sun

From the Moonshine Yarrow?

The winter fox leaves more than footprints

The leaf knows

That the winter fox

Leaves more than footprints

Artists wind and sun sculpt

Artists wind and sun

Carefully sculpt

Shape and form

Leaf within a leaf

A leaf within a leaf

But what is shadow

And what is real? 

Clawing in the snow

After a summer of blowing in the breeze

A long dark winter

Spent clawing in the snow 

Globe Thisle in winter

Summer’s perfect blue globe

Is even more beautiful

After the ravages of winter

Black-eyed Susan - beauty frozen in the wind

Last summer’s Black-eyed Susan

Transformed by the cold

Its beauty frozen in the wind

Wild Blue Flax leaf beauty

Wild Blue Flax leaf

Hidden beauty revealed

By ice and cold of winter

Paper Birch Seeds ripening in the winter cold

Ripening in the winter cold

Waiting patiently for the arrival

Of hungry Goldfinches

Maple fall foliage

Fall foliage of the maple

Refusing to succumb to

The ravages of winter

Embraced by pine needles

Oh to be lucky enough

To spend the winter

Embraced by pine needles

The beauty of sunflower petals in winter

The pleasure and comfort

From viewing sunflower petals

In deep frozen winter

Swan all alone on the ice

Swan alone on the ice

Caught in the north wind

Why do I feel so sad?

Shadow of a dinning Chickadee

Is that the shadow

of a dinning Chickadee

On the Paper Birch leaf?

Symmetry or fractal?

Symmetry or fractal?

But what matters to the Waxwing

Is the ripeness of the berries

Plate of seeds awaiting mouse tracks

A plate of seeds

Waiting in bright sunlight

For mouse tracks in the morning

Branches of the tree engraved

The branches of the tree

Seem to be engraved

On the veins of the leaf

Frozen sunflower beauty

What is more beautiful

Than the wrinkled orange pedals

Of winter sunflowers?

The fine art of flying

The leaf frozen in snow

Has learned from the swan

The fine art of flying

Paths of the ancient silk road

Do I see the paths

Of the ancient silk road

Revealed in the frozen flax leaf?

Two peas in a pod

Are two leaves on the snow

As content and secure

As two peas in the pod?