Heidi Watts

  When my friend Phyllis looked out a window she saw a painting. This morning I looked out a window and saw a painting: The leaves on a branch of the maple tree, green, filigreed, And quivering, yes, but with the sun upon them,   pure gold not the whole tree, just the branch of a tree,   reaching out in front of a forest of trees,   an army of greens, marching in place. Catching the occassional ray of sun,   Moving as the breeze moves the burnished leaves intricately cut and alive waved to me with a tease of the breeze, golden from a brush of the sun.   Phyllis painted, not the tops, nor the bottoms   but whatever part of a tree might be captured within the limitations of a   window frame. It was the frame that made the picture , the frame and the skill of the painter. Fingers bent and twisted could hardly grasp the paintbrush,   (Phyllis had rheumatoid arthritis). But sense of color sharp to the end ...

I was surprised by spring this year. The returning birds and the old faithfuls; the bulbs barely visible, growing straight up out of the dirt and bursting into little hyacinths, daffodils and tulips; the bare branch of the maple tree outside my bedroom window preening for summer with reddish whiskery buds which transition into tiny replicas of big maple leaves in a unbelievable shade of golden green, and now those big distinctively five fingered shade-makers we think of as maple leaves. I have been surprised by the deceptive but delightful burst of sunshine and warmth on a day in early April, promising the end of dreariness, though by nightfall it is weighted down and darkened by rain heavy clouds - good-bye sunshine and time in the garden - and surprised again a few days later when we are back to basking. Surprised by how the rain reeves up the brook galloping down the hillside, and how the rain can brighten the wet leaves when the clouds lift so that everything glistens newly-wash...

Only a few days after I returned from India, I was greeted in the garden by seven ladies in shiny black bombazine, jackets rucked and ruffled, above a narrow skirt, brown, black and a yellowish tan in geometric patterns like the back of a painted turtle. These are lady turkeys. Some come in shyly, heads hovering over the ground as they pick, pick, pick at the ground, but others stalk by, tiny red heads on long snaky necks held high, striding arrogantly. Sometimes my ladies seem to be striding, but just as often they are moving delicately on tiptoes over stick legs, ridiculously tall stick like legs. How can those extended chopsticks hold that heavy frame? From the upstairs window I cannot see the legs, nor the head when Ms. turkey is in “checking the ground mode” and the resemblance to a turtle, all rounded spattered shell without legs or head is even more pronounced. Occasionally my ladies come with their escort: two tom turkeys and what a sight they are! Strutting, display...

Winter Weeds   “We should take some home.”, he said.   The crop of winter weeds grew upright In the white, fresh-fallen snow. Yellow like straw, like sand, like sunlight. It was the sweet surprise of them, Suddenly – there beside the ski trail: Dried sprays, seed rattles, bowing Before the chilling winter wind. We should take some home? To blossom in a bottle   On the cluttered kitchen table In the comfortable confusion Of opened and unopened envelopes Of morning tea cups, sugar bowl, One dirty mitten, pencils, spoons And the last of the poinsettia. No. Better to leave them bending here To leave evocation to the mind's eye To know There is no time but this present.