Mud! Mud!
Luscious, luminous,
dark, discouraging,
omnipresent, eternal,
liminal, impossible,
everything possible.

Mud 
is the season
when forests look like winter
but smell like summer.
Sun lolls on icy pools
and takes forever
drizzling sweetness
through ephemeral straits.

A hairy woodpecker visits
the base of a tree
scouring for insect food
among leaves long interred.

A chipmunk fresh from its burrow
scuttles along an eroded bank
pausing on an exposed root
wondering how to cross the flooded stream
for breakfast in the woods.

Cedar Creek
ripples and whispers, beckoning.
The soul embarks on a thousand journeys
sinking and rising again
a purified mess
everywhere tracking
mud!