MINSTREL WEATHER 



hand over eager life unseen, but perceived 

 in February's woods as a swimmer feels 

 the changing moods of water in a lake fed 

 by springs. Only the thick stars, closer 

 and more companionable than in months 

 of foliage, burn alert and serene. In Feb- 

 ruary the Milky Way is revealed divinely 

 lucent to lonely peoples herdsmen, moun- 

 taineers, fishermen, trappers who are 

 abroad in the starlight hours of this grave 

 and silent time of year. It is in the long, 

 frozen nights that the sky has most red 

 flowers. 



February knows the beat of twilight 

 wings. Drifting north again come birds 

 who only pretended to forsake us adven- 

 turers, not so fond of safety but that they 

 dare risk finding how snow bunting and 

 pine finch have plundered the cones of the 

 evergreens, while chickadees, sparrows, and 

 crows are supervising from established 

 stations all the more domestic supplies 

 available, a sparrow often making it pos- 

 sible to annoy even a duck out of her 

 share of cracked corn. Ranged along a 

 brown-draped oak branch in the waxing 

 light, crows show a lordly glistening of 

 feathers. (Sun on a sweeping wing in 

 [8] 



