Be forewarned, change is in the air!

 Today's northwest wind is cold and the temperature doesn't help much. It doesn't feel like Spring but it is early Spring and Winter hasn't yet conceded. Nevertheless, sometime during the next week or so we intend to decommission the snow blower and take the backblade off the tractor. This may, or may not, trigger an April snow storm of greater or lessor magnitude. In either case, the odds are very high that whatever falls will melt soon thereafter.

early April snow storm

Photo by J. Harrington

Today is Palm Sunday. Passover began yesterday. Next Sunday is Easter. In between this Sunday and next is April Fool's Day, which feels like a highly appropriate day on which to complete the two chores identified above, unless it's actually snowing on April 1. As of this week coming up, we move into the time of rebirth on earth. April is the month of marsh marigolds in the wetlands, of bluebirds returning, of bloodroot and hepatica in the woodlands and fields.

mid-April bloodroot

Photo by J. Harrington

Today's full moon is called the Snow Crust moon by the Ojibwe and the Snow Blindness moon by the Lakota. This year, uncharacteristically, neither of those is a good fit. Had the full moon occurred three weeks ago, either name would have characterized the landscape and its effects. Spring is a time of transition.

Thinking of Madame Bovary

Jane Kenyon - 1947-1995

The first hot April day the granite step
was warm. Flies droned in the grass.
When a car went past they rose
in unison, then dropped back down. . . .

I saw that a yellow crocus bud had pierced
a dead oak leaf, then opened wide. How strong
its appetite for the luxury of the sun!

Everyone longs for love’s tense joy and red delights.

And then I spied an ant
dragging a ragged, disembodied wing
up the warm brick walk. It must have been
the Methodist in me that leaned forward,
preceded by my shadow, to put a twig just where
the ant was struggling with its own desire.

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