Deer Brook, Snow Mountain Trail, Adirondacks, NY.  Spring is growing stronger, and the days warmer, slowly shrinking the winter's snow that clings to the sun-starved gorge of Deer Brook.  Drop by drop, the ice pack underneath gives up it's solid form and rolls downward, collecting, merging, joining ever into a larger body.  The brook may be running harder when I return later in the day, but for now it's easily crossed.  In summer, I've seen this so low there's but a trickle running through it, the sources all but evaporated from higher above here.  I stay here awhile, receding, like the snow, into the landscape.  I just want to watch, and wonder how I've thawed over time.  How you made my inner cold melt, changed me, until a river of compassion flowed out of me. And when the water's gone,  I still want to be refreshed, fed by your endless spring.