My sage is still making new leaves.
We walk this morning around the Sudbury Reservoir. The trail goes along train tracks, exposed, and we're cold, the wind cuts straight through the weave of our shirts. We move more quickly, and the blood warms us. The rocks are hard but between them are patches of leaves and water, railroad ties crumbling slowly. On the beach we find freshwater mussels, abandoned snail houses. Plastic tubs meant for nightcrawlers, beer cans and milk jugs.
Bleached bone curled and twisted skinless vines, mated together with angel's hair nylon lines. Fishermen have been bathing and the lake is floured with foam. Tufts the size of a soccer ball collect and get yellow in the catches and corners.
The signs says "No Trespassing - MDC" and we wonder how they expect us to access the trails.
Across the street we follow the trail down the side of a hill, scoping out places to stash a letterbox. We come to a tussle of rocks, stretching a finger into the reservoir.
On the rocks, I am standing, bendy, a sail. The little scrub pines are bowing but the standing boulder does not budge. This water is cold and clear in the fresh light. Stones skip easy in this busy-body water. We sit in the lee of the boulder, solemn guard, and talk of trees and mullein and johnny jump ups.
It is so warm. The air was fragrant today, fruitlike. My sage is making new leaves though the older ones are browning. The stalks are half an inch thick now. There is bittersweet all over my house, blood-berries clutching their yellow coats, half-shed. Next spring I will plant mint in the lawn and clover. Strawberries, just to spite the grass.