Edge of Winter

Andrew Wyeth said, “I prefer winter and fall, when you can feel the bone structure of the landscape – the loneliness of it – the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it – the whole story doesn’t show.”

I suspect Wyeth would have found Schweitzer’s marsh to be an embodiment of that quote.  Early this morning, when the temperature was still below zero, the sounds of silence crossing the ice were broken only by the bones of long dead pin oaks creaking against the passage of time.

Edge of Spring

Every year, a week or two before spring asserts itself, before the subtle transition of Northeast Ohio’s colorless landscape, before migrating waterfowl descend in great waves, the early geese arrive in pairs. Marsh grass, sedge and bullrushes bleached ashen over winter, and forests of gray hardwood provide a natural canvas for their return. What beautiful spots of time separating the seasons, momentarily bloodless before the trees go red with new skin and the marsh grows green.