February in Chicago. I saw the sun for about five minutes out my office window during the morning, but it didn’t start snowing until just before I was ready to leave for the day. Mixed news, that. On the bright side, it gave me a chance to walk outside for five minutes to photograph the gray day for my sunshine journal.

(This is my sunshine journal. Enjoy.)

What interested me most wasn’t the sky per se but how indistinguishable its color was from the ice on the pond outside my office. So I photographed the pond, through tree trunks, and that’s what you see here.

Also interesting, though differently, was the number of nests I noticed for the first time in the nearby trees—at least three of them in a pretty small space. This is one of them, empty, probably abandoned, though something might claim it again in the spring.

And although the temperature is supposed to be in the single digits in the next couple of days, I know that spring is coming, and so do the birds. My garden hasn’t woken up yet—a good thing, actually, given the weather outlook—but it will soon.

Meanwhile, my little poem Pomegranate was published today as part of a wonderful Valentine’s Day poetry collection on Escape into Life, and I couldn’t be more pleased. It’s just 10 lines, but it too reminds me of the warm air of summer. I’m honored to be in much more accomplished company in this collection. Read the other poets, even if you don’t like mine.