Especially on freezing days when even creek motion fixed and solid as ice, there is an immutability about this place, a stillness though polar winds whip the bare branches of beech and oak.
This deep freeze is a final drawing in, a last hibernation, a false sleep. Buds swell unseen. Cells divide hidden in wombs of bracts and scales, ready with promise and latent with the translucent color of spring leaves and petals.