SPRING IN ALGONQUIN

Red Maples - Lake Of Two Rivers, Algonquin.   Watercolour Sketch

 SPRING IN ALGONQUIN

Late at night,

sleep evasive,

I stand on the shore, 

and take in the sight.

It’s April in Algonquin, 

the landscape is changing.

With cool nights and warm days 

Red Maples wake from their slumber, 

and put forth buds 

painting the stark winter landscape, 

a hue of red.

Lakes once frozen from shore to shore, 

now loosen their grip.

Ravens flying high 

search the shores, 

for those that failed to endure, 

endless days and nights of 

Algonquin’s snow and cold.

Birds native, 

warily accept, 

the return of migrants banished, 

by Algonquin’s snow and cold. 

Canoeists,

anxious to dip their blades,

early to arrive,

find that Algonquin’s weather, 

no mimic of that in the south, and

can only gaze on ice covered lakes,

dream of spring, 

and paddling

 in cold clear waters.

The wind shifts from north to south.

Warm breezes melt the snow and the ice. 

Early one morning out on a lonely Algonquin lake, 

now free from its ice,

the silence is broken,

a loon yodels…..

spring has arrived.