Rumors of Spring

The waxing moon was briefly visible at nightfall yesterday, and temperatures were slightly below zero overnight. As I looked though my kitchen window around three this morning, I heard the north wind cavorting across the roof shingles and cantering briskly through the eaves of the little blue house in the village.

There was a dusting of fresh snow at sunrise, the sound of snapping and crackling as winter birds danced from twig to brittle twig among the bare shrubberies and did a little chilled singing to greet the day. Our birdbaths have yet to emerge from the deep snow in the garden, but hillocks of white stuff mark their location, looking for all the world like pointed Chinese hats.

Now and then, there are balmy, brilliant blue days in early March, but at the moment we are lurching between winter and spring, grey skies from here to there much of the time, winds out of the north, snow and ice pellets, occasionally freezing rain. We wandered in the woods for a while last weekend, but after only a few shutter clicks, my fingers were blue, and back into heavy gloves they went.

Wonder of wonders, a gnarly old willow down by the creek was putting up lovely furry catkins in its protected alcove, and the icicles below it cradled tiny branches and fragile scraps of green. Snow blanketed everything in my favorite clearing, but the little stream at my feet was running free and singing, its waters dark and glossy and filled with possibility. Willow, song and flow are still percolating in my thoughts this morning, a day or two later.

A hodgepodge of seasonal images and motifs perhaps, but not unusual for my native place, and I am quite all right with it. There is light in the dwindling icicles, in thawing streams and fuzzy little willow buds, and perhaps springtime is not far off. I cling to the thought and turn my collar up against the gelid wind.