Today

The oak trees are blooming now, blooming golden, as if already aged, looking wise next to the pert lime green of the new birch leaves. It is blue skies today, and in Minnesota, that alone is a reason to call it a fine day. The wind is brisk and strong, coming straight off the lake and up our yard. The clouds stream overhead as if on an interstate, and me, a hitchhiker hopeful by the side of the road. The group of bass trees on the edge of the yard are fairly young. They stretch over the lawn and almost touch the older, dying basswood in the center of the yard, a span of inches between tip of branch to tip of outermost branch. It’s almost like they’re reaching for each other. And the yellow finches flit across the space between the branches, streaming between them as if there is an invisible connection, delicate as cobweb, like a bridge so fine that from a distance it seems to disappear in the center. I, planted on the ground, am not privy to those features and landmarks that are so obvious to the birds from their aerial view. I look up through the trees to the sky as if I’m looking up from underwater. To them, the whole world is topography that they dip into and swoop through. I'm too far down in it.