On the river

I took the kayak out yesterday, for the first trip this season. The marsh grass is still gray with mud from high tides, but you can see the beginnings of green near the roots. The bushes along the water's edge are still mostly bare, but then you'll see one branch that's covered with new leaves. A Canada goose in someone's lawn over here, another one over there, four mallards swimming under a dock. A forsythia covered in gold blooms. And as I'm sitting at my desk looking out the back window, I just saw a bald eagle swoop in and land on a tree limb across the river.