Beyond our windows is rain, drifting fog and a forlorn copse of skeletal maples and ashes doing their best to put out leaves, catkins and flowers. Alas, springtime is late this year, and the tree people have a very long way to go.
In the street, a west wind cavorts in gutters, ruffles dead leaves and other detritus like playing cards. It eases around the corner of the little blue house in the village and sets the copper wind bells on the deck in exuberant motion. So ardent is the wind's caress that sometimes the bells are almost parallel to the ground.
The air is warmer than the ground below today, and the meeting of the two elements is stirring up something magical. Somewhere in the murk, robins sing their pleasure in the rain, and a woodpecker (probably a pileated from the volume of its hammering) is driving its formidable beak into an old birch. Now and again, he (or possibly she) pauses, takes a few deep breaths and gives a wild unfettered laugh that carries for quite a distance. Even a bird in the fog, it seems, knows the value of taking a break from its work now and again, just breathing in and out for a minute or two and giving voice to a cackle of wild amusement.
I can't see either the caroling robins or my whomping woodpecker, but that is all right. Their voices are welcome musical elements in a morning that is all about the nebulous, the wondrous and unseen.
In the kitchen, coffee is in progress and and a little Mozart (The Magic Flute) fills the air, but something more is needed. Miracle of miracles, a small cluster of purple crocus is blooming in a protected corner of the garden, and I can see them from the window over the sink. The little dears are lit from within, and I swear, they could light up the whole village.
1 comment:
Crocus are brave and wonderful early harbingers of spring.
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