The Vernal Jar

The vixen noses her way to the mouth of her den, and gives a wary sniff

Her mate leads the way, their paws puncture snow

Four-clawed prints of warmth

Where the crystal-fluff melts softly to dampen dormant blades of grass

A pattering-path,

Her gait is shorter, wider, less playful than his

Though her prints are just as deep, for the added weight she bears upon her feet

Where the snow thaws it pools,

Cold as crystal and just as pure

The water is still as glass

For this puddle has not yet bloomed

She laps at the frigid waters, her tongue scrapes invisible floes of ice

And her reflection shimmers beneath the reach of the westering sun

As she drinks from the Fountain of Rebirth

Then she retreats to the warmth of her den

And her mate stands guard

As she births their pups to the world

The days grow longer,

Winter slinks away

A warm front rises from the South, it rolls in like a wave

All ice is soon defeated

Snowmelt tributaries gush like arteries

The lowlands flood

Her pups crowd at the mouth of their den

They fight for a spot

And watch the waters rise

Danger creeps closer

Closer

The brave one reaches out one wavering paw and slaps the intruding waters away

He flinches at the newness

But the vixen, she chose by good instinct,

The waters do not press beyond the brink

And when they finally recede

The family ventures out across a soggy field

In search of something clean to drink

The smells are chaos now,

For the floods have seeded the sterile Winter Pool with signs of life again!

With a million eggs

And a billion spores

Among the silt

Of cyclops

Of daphnia

Of copepods

Of hydra

And amoebae

Of bacteria and algae

The foxes splash the glittering sun-drenched waters

But

The scent lingers on the nose, so they wander on

To search out waters that run pure

They leave the vernal pool

By dusk, singing frogs have hopped over

For a place to breed and spawn

And like magic, by the coming dawn the pool is ringed with jelly!

The birds bring duckweed and fish eggs

Then the dragon flies come to lay

And their nymphs begin to prey— on tadpoles and larval fry and tinier bugs

The little magic puddle froths and teems,

A microcosmic sea with creatures unknown to land

The kraken and leviathan wage their wars between wet grains of sand

And when the ephemeral ocean dries and the mud begins to crack

The rains will fall upon the dust

And the petrichor shall call the sniffing vixen back

***

Authors note:

A while back I found hundreds of baby fish drying in a puddle on a park road. I transferred as many as I could to the creek.

This poem is about the cyclic ordered chaos of water, warmth, and life in seasonal wetlands: how all three return each spring :)