Leaf Remnants

I was up in Maine for a few days for work-related meetings, without Kodi and my daily walks with him. Today he and I resumed our winter walkabouts. It felt good to be outside again in the crisp air, beneath a blue sky, with chickadees singing, a downy woodpecker pecking on a basswood trunk, and a skein of geese flying over.

In the backyard Kodi rolled on the crusty snow, rubbing his face, neck and back on the cold snow. I walked in bare boots on the well-packed snowshoe paths in our yard. If I strayed from the path I sunk to my knees in soft snow. The paths are strewn with remnants of leaves and lichen and bits of bark and twigs. While I was gone wind and sleet shook them loose from the trees above. Even in early February, some leaves still hold tight to their branch (or did until this week). They've lost their luster now and lie along my walking path as remnants, thin and pale, decaying more each day, soon to nourish the trees from which they fell.