Springtime

It begins in a subtle, but seemingly fickle way. One tentative step forward, then two half hearted steps back, and then a bolder step forward, followed by another, and another, and then there is no looking back. Winter never gives up its cold icy grasp without a fight, but there comes a time when it has run its course, and quietly succumbs. To paraphrase the Gaelic songwriter, “The valleys are no longer hushed, no longer white with snow.” The days grow longer and soon they outlast the clement sunlight, and our warm stars rays grow even more radiant. As young women wait for love, the entire world waits for springtime.

Green grass appears once again, and the slender, tender blades are prominent on the sides of sun basked hills and roadside banks, slowly overwhelming autumn’s and winters forgotten clutter. Crocuses, tulips and daffodils poke their colorful fragile heads out of long neglected flowerbeds, still littered with last seasons decaying leaves and grass. The trees and bushes of the forest sense the change and conceive the swelling buds that will slowly ripen into another year’s protective leafy canopy. Their rough trunks glisten with running sap as they prepare to add another ring of life, and once more their branches are alive with a menagerie of colorful birds; back from their winter retreats, and now carefully weaving their nests.  Acrobatic squirrels show off their aeronautical skills and pent-up exuberance, leaping from tree-top to tree-top in their new found freedom.

Out on the ponds, lakes and streams, wood ducks, golden eyes, and green headed mallards once again forage in the muddy bottoms that were long locked away under winter’s frozen impenetrable barrier. They preen their feathers while nosily and enthusiastically readying themselves for spring’s annual courtship. Deep in the woods, does, heavy with fawns, lie wearily on the warming hillsides.  They appear gaunt from the long winter siege, but for now they revel in the rebirth of the land, and know that food will once again be plentiful and that their time is near.

Everywhere swollen wombs empty with tiny replicas of their parent species, hungrily searching for nourishment and a chance to survive and carry on in this new world.  Eggs are laid and hens settle in for their long lonely vigils in their nests. Fish crowd to the same sandy shallows their parents once came to spawn, their belly’s now ripe with roe. Cubs and pups, and all of the newborns emerge wide eyed from their darkened dens, presenting themselves at nature’s altar. Enduring their species yes-- but more than that, doing their part in the rebirth and the cleansing of mother earth.

It’s a time for all of us to renew ourselves too, and to look forward to those carefree lazy days of summer. It’s a special time to plant the harvest and welcome the warm April rains that softly fall and germinate the seeds, replenish the lakes and ponds, and wash away winters dirt and grime. Mankind knows that when the years of our lives are finally finished and tallied, they will most often be measured by the summers of our life, and spring is the great precursor to all the summers.  It sets the stage with this remarkable reincarnation of life itself. It is a fresh new beginning for nature, and for all of us. Each day we wait in breathless anticipation, as if every spring will be our only spring.