The Art We Sometimes Miss

The art that we sometimes miss: the lichen on a tree, the pattern of fissures on the bark, the form of an ancient elm, the dark stillness in a stand of hemlock, a squirrel scampering across a rail fence, a cardinal perched in the snow caught in the crevice of a pine, a chickadee skittish among the dormant twigs of the barberry, the sound of snow crunch underfoot, the mosaic of the moods of clouds, the countenance of the nor'easter, the blush of green on the first leaves, the slate wrath of the harbor before the storm.