Friday Ramble - On Our Way

Beyond our windows this morning are clouds, 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 time around, and the tree people have a long way to go before they leaf out fully, but they are working on it.

In the street, a cold wind cavorts in the 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 still frozen ground below, and the meeting of the two elements stirs up something magical. Somewhere in the early murk, a few robins sing their pleasure, 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 an 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 raucous 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, the mysterious 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, yellow crocus are blooming in the protected southern corner of a neighbor's garden. The little dears are lit from within, and I swear, they light up the whole village.