A time of promises (to be fulfilled)

By the time this week has ended, March will have turned into April and we’ll be celebrating(?) April Fool’s Day. Barring the bizarre, snow will still cover the ground albeit at a lesser depth. Next week, next month, spring begins to get serious, but first we need to get there.

I’m anticipating enjoying the gradual appearance of spring ephemerals. Soon spring’s songbird migrants, such as Baltimore Orioles and Scarlet Tanagers will arrive, some to stay, others to pass through. I’m disappointed, but not surprised, that we’ve not seen big flocks of waterfowl yet. The local ponds and lakes are still covered with snow and ice (as is about 75% of our driveway).

when will wood ducks return?

Photo by J. Harrington

The sun is now warm enough that, sitting in an easy chair in the sun-filled living room, I get warm and sleepy. That’s an improvement over winter’s chilliness in the same chair when the skies were gray and the wind howling. A few days back, we shared Wallace Stevens’ Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, in which he ponders:

V

I do not know which to prefer,   

The beauty of inflections   

Or the beauty of innuendoes,   

The blackbird whistling   

Or just after.   

Today I’m feeling much the same about spring’s arrival. I do not know which to prefer, the enjoyment of anticipation or the arrival of the season's harbingers. Snow remains in the forecast, but is outnumbered by days of warmth and/or rain. Soon all our precipitation will be rain, at least for a few weeks or months. We’ve progressed to a point that the consecutive days of 1 inch snow cover at the airport is down to a trace after 116 days. We’re almost there in the real world as well as on the calendar.

Spring Song

Dorothy Parker - 1893-1967

(In the Expected Manner)

Enter April, laughingly,
     Blossoms in her tumbled hair,
High of heart, and fancy-free—
     When was maiden half so fair?
Bright her eyes with easy tears,
     Wanton-sweet, her smiles for men. 
“Winter’s gone,” she cries, “and here’s Spring again.”

When we loved, ‘twas April, too;
     Madcap April—urged us on.
Just as she did, so did you—
     Sighed, and smiled, and then were gone.
How she plied her pretty arts,
     How she laughed and sparkled then!
April, make love in our hearts
     Spring again!

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