An Equinox equivocation

Cold, damp, cloudy, dreary...Welcome to Spring in Minnesota. The Equinox occurs tonight at 10:49 pm CDT. It's preceded by rain and, maybe, snow forecast for this afternoon. The small pond up the road looked like this yesterday:

approaching Spring Equinox 2020

Photo by J. Harrington

Although I've seen reports of trout anglers doing a "social distance" dance in Southeast Minnesota and Western Wisconsin (the Driftless Area), I'm having a hard time getting motivated to take a long drive, get layered up, and then fight the wind to make a decent cast. Maybe next week?

early May, Driftless Area

Photo by J. Harrington

From a flood risk perspective, thus far we've "enjoyed" a moderate and tempered Spring thaw. The snow cover and banks have diminished slowly and, it looks like, much of the snowmelt has infiltrated the groundwater rather than flow overland into creeks and streams and rivers. Writing this has me looking forward to spending more time outside, poking around, seeing what's going on and maybe even enjoying the feeling of warm sunshine on my back. But not today. Today we're a month or six weeks or more from wildflowers and hummingbirds. Fortunately, Jane Hirshfield has a recently published volume of poems that promises to provide us with a re-grounding and to help us reconcile to the world on which we live and with the universe in which it lives. I can almost envision lolling about with a copy, resting my back against a tree trunk, while zephyrs entwine the crown, and sunlight dapples the pages I'm reading. Remember, no matter how deep the forest, we can only go in halfway, then we're on our way out again.

Let Them Not Say

Jane Hirshfield - 1953-

Let them not say:   we did not see it.
We saw.
Let them not say:   we did not hear it.
We heard.
Let them not say:     they did not taste it.
We ate, we trembled.
Let them not say:   it was not spoken, not written.
We spoke,
we witnessed with voices and hands.
Let them not say:     they did nothing.
We did not-enough.
Let them say, as they must say something: 
A kerosene beauty.
It burned.
Let them say we warmed ourselves by it,
read by its light, praised,
and it burned.

—2014

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