Fragments From Floyd

Suddenly the grass grows out the back door in piles, in unkempt tangles, dark green, rising explosively from winter's frozen reserves. This morning the tufts of green are dusted with a skiff of late March snowflakes. The birds--titmice, bluebirds, robins--sing from bare branches, and down on the cold ground they wonder why did they arrive south before dinner was served? The only color, save for hidden greens in the pasture under last years dun and taupe, is the yellow-green of the tiny flowers of spicebush along the creeks and edge of the field.

The remainder of life this time of year is happening high overhead in the reds of maple and sarvice and poplar buds that you can see from across the pasture when the sun shines brightly. But that is just the matter: we've lost the sun to NeitherNor. Just when all of the rainbow potential of nature is being birthed so fast you could hear it if you truly listened, the cheerless season descends in late March to cast a cold, wet winter pallor on our hopes of spring.

It has been three days since we have seen the sun. It will be another week before we see it again--another week of tiny fires in the wood stove while it stays 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 for tilling. One more week of sepia-somber days that are more like winter than spring.

Then. The sun will suddenly arrive--with all its bags--as if it has come to stay. NeitherNor will be a memory of a time when we required more patience than we had until life would come back into the longer, gray days. The sun will come. 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 suprise party for months. And then it will be spring.

This is a slight reworking from a post from March 2004. I love going back and seeing how the seasons bring so many of the same peaks and troughs, moods and funks, feelings on your skin, and smells. For someone who could never keep a paper journal but started one a dozen times, the fact that this one has gone on daily for three years is remarkable, and of inestimable value in my fifty-sixth year. Indulge me the occasional reminiscence, won't you?