WINTER FERN-HUNTING 



under the blister of the sun would not 

 only evaporate all moisture, but would so 

 remain in the rock all night as to prevent 

 any dew from condensing on it. 



I had seen the polypodys at midday 

 curled up on themselves seemingly noth- 

 ing but dried tissues that could never be 

 again infused with the breath of green 

 life. Yet, let there come but the briefest 

 of showers and you would see them un- 

 curl, lift their fronds to the breeze, and go 

 on as cheerily as their lower level neigh- 

 bors the lady-ferns whose pinnules flashed 

 in the drip of the splashing stream and 

 whose roots bathed in the shallows. 



The summer must have weakened 

 them. Were they the sort to shrivel at 

 the touch of the freezing wind and vanish 

 into the fern-seed magic of invisibility? 

 Not they. The slender crevice of black 

 dirt in which their roots grow was black 



83 



