Winter, Spring—just like that

A snowy world patterned by crisp lines of tree shadows: that was this winter, still strong in my mind’s eye, strong in my heart, as I remember January and February in a winter that felt like winters from twenty years ago. Snow on the ground for weeks, several storms dropping ice, snow, sleet again and again. Many mornings putting warm water in the frozen bird baths. Bags and bags of sunflower seed distributed in seven all-too-quickly-emptied feeders. So many birds! Even the snow plow came to our faraway, long gravel road twice this year.

More recently, the March moon has been showing herself brightly high in the morning sky as she wanes, and so I’ve been reminded of how the arc of her path sinks as spring arrives. One of the things I love most about winter is the high arc of the moon, the way bare trees cast artful shadows because of this. Meanwhile, swiftly the daffodils rise and bloom on long stems, in bunches all over the yard, and all kinds of trees seem to have pushed out their millions of buds practically overnight. The sounding wind gusting through another sunny dry day reminds me that we are badly in need of rain. Nevertheless, this is the time of bright red maple blooms on grey twigs, catkins dancing in the constant breezes, birds leaving and other birds coming in. We heard the blue-headed vireo for the first time yesterday.

The goats are itchy as they begin to shed their shaggy winter coats, and the hint of green in this photo from a week or so ago is much more obvious in the pastures now. I was awakened a couple nights ago by the wind howling through the pines, and in the light of the very bright moon, I wrote a poem about the turmoil of equinox, of that edgy time when I feel spring more than I see or hear it, even, and when I find myself reluctant to let go of winter.