Fragments From Floyd

The grass out the back door piles up in unkempt tangles, dark green, growing explosively from winter's unused reserves; and this morning it is dusted with a skiff of late March snowflakes. The birds--titmice, bluebirds, robins--sing from bare branches, come down to the cold ground wondering why did they arrive south before dinner was served? The only color, save for hidden greens in the pasture under last years grasses of dun and taupe, is the yellow-greens of the tiny flowers of spicebush along the creeks and edge of the field. Everything else this time of year is happening high overhead in the reds of maple and sarvice and poplar buds that you can see when the sun shines brightly. But that is just the matter. Just when all of the rainbow potential of nature is being birthed so fast you could hear it if you truly listened, the season of NeitherNor descends with a vengeance in late March throwing a cold, wet blanket on the party.

It has been three days since we have seen the sun. It will be another week before we see it, and warmer temperatures, again. We will endure another week of tiny fires in the wood stove because it is just cold enough for the house to lose a few degrees too much heat at night for the next day's comfort. Another week of wet mud before the garden can dry enough for tilling. One more week of sepia toned somber days that are more like winter than spring.

Then. The sun will suddenly appear with all its bags as if it has come to stay a spell. NeitherNor will be a memory of a time when we needed a bit more patience than we had for life to return to our lengthening days. And it will be for all the world like a "surprise party" where out pops the world of color again. SURPRISE! And the yellows of bellworts and field cress, the maroons and reds of Trilliums and Fire Pink, and the whites of Bloodroot, Hepatica and Anemone will explode all at once, as if they had been planning this event for months. And then it will be spring.