We’ve been sent to this rainforest trail on a mission: sever and bring home three blue berry branches—-each the red color of spring, each supporting swelling flower buds. I carry a mercifully sharp knife to do the deed. Aki, a fan of the ripe blueberry refuses to help. She knows, as I do, that while the plants wounded by my hand will survive their severed limbs will never bear fruit. They pay the price for our indulgence; our need to watch their tiny blossoms, each a miniature Japanese lantern open during Easter dinner. 

The rain returned last night to wash away much of winter’s snow from the trails. Little bags of rains hang from the blue berry brush, each a misshapen globe of light. With rain hammering my parka hood I can barely hear an eagle complain in the trail side spruce or the percussive rhythms of a woodpecker’s drilling for food. Still, the deluge has freed the trail boards of ice and infused them with a lovely if weak glimmer. There’s beauty here—-shinning trails and bags of rain, melting ice still encasing thin roots of an tumbled tree, this motif delivered by the tide—curves of a partially burned root providing counterpoint for the angular interplay of glowing gray cliff rocks.