An icy grip eases

Have you noticed that the days’ daylight has lengthened? We could say days are getting more daylightful every day. A week from now, we’ll be enjoying almost 10 hours of daylight.

Yes, Virginia, even in the North Country is can rain in February

Photo by J. Harrington

Today, in honor of impending Imbolc, we started spring cleaning. Regardless of the state of the house, spring cleaning will be finished when nighttime low temperatures remain above freezing. That will be the time of year (early April) when attention is redirected to what’s going on outside our four walls. Birds will be nesting, trees will begin leafing, plants will be flowering, water will be flowing and the North Country will be aliving.

The dogs seem to sense that winter is waning. They’re more interested in exploring, following scents, and zooming about their run or inside the house when back from a walk. There will be more cold spells, and more snow storms before winter finally yields to spring but the change from winter into spring is inevitable, closer by the day, and music to my ears.

Cold Spring

By Lawrence Raab

The last few gray sheets of snow are gone,

winter’s scraps and leavings lowered

to a common level. A sudden jolt

of weather pushed us outside, and now

this larger world once again belongs to us.

I stand at the edge of it, beside the house,

listening to the stream we haven’t heard

since fall, and I imagine one day thinking

back to this hour and blaming myself

for my worries, my foolishness, today’s choices

having become the accomplished

facts of change, accepted

or forgotten. The woods are a mangle

of lines, yet delicate, yet precise,

when I take the time to look closely.

If I’m not happy it must be my own fault.

At the edge of the lawn my wife

bends down to uncover a flower, then another.

The first splurge of crocuses.

And for a moment the sweep and shudder

of the wind seems indistinguishable

from the steady furl of water

just beyond her.

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