What Comes Around

Frog eggs in Painted Post . . . or soon Meals-Ready-to-Eat, as raccoon like to think of them.

Springtime has finally found fair purchase
in the rolling, wooded hills of Painted Post,
with winter banished to the shadowy hollows
—for this now, anyway.
Quietly, I watch these coonhound pups
race through the forest, with each
carrying this vernal season in their growing bodies.
 
This not-spring, think-there’ll-be-frost-come-mornin’ chicken
studies these young hounds navigate the woods,  learning each day.
Yes, one last litter to raise.* And while their youth can’t rub off,
their exuberance makes an old man somehow somewhat-less older.
Time spent with them makes for long days and likewise lengthy jaunts
into the forest, but it’s not such a bad thing.
It is Painted Post, after all.

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