"The Winter that Wasn't" Contest Entry: Lech Woźniak, "The Woodpecker"

In the spring on Epiphany we plod through the woods as if through a desert. Dropsy sniffs more and I see less – it’s spring, without the buds yet, but present in the weather. The wild boars are gone to the morass, the roe deer have left their tracks in the mud, and the pheasants, well, like the pheasants: you don’t know until you scare one off. So it’s up for Dropsy to be recognizing our lesser brethren, for me it’s only presence via sight.

We approach a pond. Once flowing over the dam, now dwindled, rachitic,  virtually dubious, like a leaky vessel, no longer to be swum across but to be crossed on foot – in wellingtons, but that doesn’t make sense.

No rustle, some banging, then silence, and again. I’m looking out for blowdowns – it’s always cheaper and the hiking makes sense. Some banging, then silence, and again.

The naroids, haberdings and stainsies all have their time and place, but why it’s a record low of minus ninety four Celsius in Antarctica and below minus forty and blizzards in the US?

A hare leaps out but Dropsy, summoned, leaves it, its tail nervously upright, while above there’s some banging, then silence, and again.

There’s snow in the shadows of the obvious January leftovers, but it’s poor, pitiful, and you’d need to guess it’s “winter”.

Omnia, omnius, moribus est… Time, memory, toys, tools, pencils – what do you need to find meaning, to understand things as they are?

We go back through the mud of clayey memory, more precise than a track in the snow. It’s boar hoof prints mostly, with some deer spoor, sometimes a hare’s leg.

We trudge on, the clay sticking to the boots, catching, not like the smooth and gliding snow.

Getting bogged down, crushing the downright miasmata of the users of this trail, we snatch our soles free, and there’s some banging, then silence, and again.

We’d feel unsatisfied when suddenly there’s bang, pop, blast, burst, clap, thud, slam, boom!

The flutter of wings – a rustle – and it’s no longer: some banging, then silence, and again.

And from above falls a woodpecked piece of a birch trunk...

Translated from the Polish.