What lies beneath the snow

Before Maddie, we had a golden retriever, Misty, who was crazy about tennis balls. She would fetch for as long as you could throw. The key was getting her to drop them: She would do it if you used two balls, throwing one first, then showing her the other when she brought the first one back, which she would then drop so you could throw the other one, etc.

(Maddie, who is also a retriever, couldn't care less. She might pick the ball up if she is in the mood, but then she will run around with it, or she might ignore it all together.)

During our play with Misty, balls would inevitably get lost in the small wooded area behind our house.

At our parents' beach house on Long Island, balls would also get lost in the hedges. This was due to Misty's occasional visits or to my kids playing catch or batting the balls.

Nobody noticed them when the leaves fell in fall, but when the snow melted and spring came, the yellow spheres would be more visible.

My mother used to call and say, "There are yellow bulbs blooming all around!" Of course she meant the balls. I noticed them in my yard, too.

With this in mind, now that the snow has finally melted, I began to notice all the little things that had been buried under the snow in my neighborhood. Yes, I'm talking about trash. There seems to be more of it this year. For fun, I memorized words that I saw on newspaper circulars and other scraps of paper and junk that I saw. OK, it sounds weird, but I picked up some pieces of paper too.

Here's a little poem that I came up with, mixing up some words but also keeping many together as I saw them. Let's call it my version of modern-day anthropology. It really has nothing to do with what I usually write about, except for this: It's about noticing, and noticing is a good way to keep from worrying.

Raspberry, peaches, pudding

Bottle caps: Blue

Bottle, Yahoo

Pencil, blue too.

Plastic wrap, paper cup, straw

Free.

Lamp, mattress, TV room

Will you scratch my back?

Help.

Feed your family

Manwich sauce, Subway

Sloppy Joe

Triple chocolate brownie

Purple crush, Capri Sun

White sock: One

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year

Joy and happiness

Cash, change, megamillions

Thanks.

Prescription drugs:

Effexor, Cialis, Viagra

Enjoy.

Red plum, spring water, blue moon

Good deal, shopping spree

Peanut butter M&Ms

Peace.