Scavenging

The forest splits into cracks under the weight of my snow shoes….like small glaciers, breaking apart. I am looking for dry wood, our shed stockpile now down to a few large logs frozen to the ground – solid till spring.
In my gathering I touch the dead trees by the pond. It seems to intimate…feeling its bark, like a skin beneath my ungloved hand. Beneath the crusty gray skin of a deceased birch, the tree is soft and has soaked up water like a sponge—as I move away some sawdust I find an acorn…placed there by a mouse or squirrel for safe keeping. I put it back. Maybe it will return to scavenge its winter store.