Are we sure this is “Spring?"

With the possible exception of questioning if we’ll enjoy enough snow cover for a white Christmas, the arrival of real spring stresses what little patience I have more than any other seasonal change. I don’t recall every getting antsy about when the leaf color will appear in autumn, but I do begin to wonder about when we’ll get leaf-out (usually around early May). Once the ice is off local trout streams, I wear insulated waders until water temperatures climb enough to make light-weight waders or wet wading comfortable. No big deal. I don’t even get too concerned about ice out on our local lakes and, since I’m not really an ice angler, I never care about when the ice will be thick enough to walk on.

some “Springs" mid-April looks like this

Photo by J. Harrington

Now, if you’re feeling brave, ask me how much I want the ice off our driveway and the snow gone from our yard. I’ll give you an earful. It’s possible, now that I’m learning about no mow May and leaving dead leaves in place until we start mowing, rather than “tidying” the yard as soon as the soil dries and grass turns green, I’lll have to repress old habits and urges but it will be worth it to be able to get out and walk around with the dogs without having to break trail.

I suspect that growing up on the Atlantic coast, literally within ten miles or so of the ocean, has me biased against the kinds of winters we get in the North Country. I became imprinted on winters that were neither as long nor as deep as those we get here. The fact that we may get a couple of inches of snow this week and another inch and a half next week and, in between, may see our first 50℉ high since some time months ago doesn’t help. It feels as if Mother Nature keeps teasing us with a promise of spring only to snatch it away and say “Not yet!!” That kind of inconsistency is maddening, in both (all?) senses of the word.

Spring Snow

By Linda Gregerson

A kind of counter- 

blossoming, diversionary, 

doomed, and like 

the needle with its drop 

of blood a little 

too transparently in 

love with doom, takes 

issue with the season: Not 

(the serviceberry bright 

with explanation) not 

(the redbud unspooling 

its silks) I know I've read 

the book but not (the lilac, 

the larch) quite yet, I still 

have one more card to 

play. Behold 

a six-hour wonder: six 

new inches bedecking the 

railing, the bench, the top 

of the circular table like 

a risen cake. The saplings 

made (who little thought 

what beauty weighs) to bow 

before their elders. 

The moment bears more 

than the usual signs of its own 

demise, but isn't that 

the bravery? Built 

on nothing but the self- 

same knots of air 

and ice. Already 

the lip of it riddled 

with flaws, a sort 

of vascular lesion that 

betokens—what? betokens 

the gathering return 

to elementals. (She 

was frightened 

for a minute, who had 

planned to be so calm.) 

A dripline scoring 

the edge of the walk. 

The cotton batting blown 

against the screen begun 

to pill and molt. (Who 

clothed them out of 

mercy in the skins 

of beasts.) And even 

as the last of the 

lightness continues 

to fall, the seepage 

underneath has gained 

momentum. (So that 

there must have been a 

death before 

the death we call the 

first or what became 

of them, the ones 

whose skins were taken.) 

Now the more- 

of-casting-backward-than-of- 

forward part, which must 

have happened while I wasn't 

looking or was looking 

at the skinning knives. I think 

I'll call this mercy too.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.