Spring

Spring Rains

The clouds are playing, touching, toying with the earthen soil this morning.... the fog hangs low and the mist is thick.  A gently rain fell all night long, only somewhat audible during my dream-state, just there in the background of my night images causing me to travel to brooks and streams and beautiful waterfalls on the slumber-wagon.  It seems that the sun has submitted to the mist, not trying nor willing to break the chimerical world, the peaceful moisture that condenses on each new spring leaf, each blade of grass, each stone that seems to grow out of the rich soil.

Earth scents rise and are trapped swirling gently with each tender barefoot step I place in the cool grass.  The freshness tingles my toes, sends a message of life, and being alive up my ankle to the backs of my knees as I move through the yard, examining the near spent apple blossoms that promise assurances of sweet fruits come autumn.  Small, happy song birds, quieter than the sun would make them, but melodic none-the-less, puff their feathers to dry themselves, a futile exercise, as I, on the solid earth recognize I am walking in the cloud that rises up, thicker yet, consuming them in the upper branches of the big old tree.

The duckmen, less hurried than usual, move in a placid assemblage, one straggler holding back, taking an extra moment to pick a tender, moisture filled new shoot of grass, then catching up with his fellows.  The hens are missing these day, tucked off somewhere secretive to settle their warm underbellies on large white eggs, hoping for a family, soon.

Moisture drips from pulled tendrils of spent wool as the sheep, like moving statues, make a slow progression across green pastures.  Heads down, one step at a time, the flock makes its way up the emerald pasture and back down, with nothing, seemingly, on their minds, but the luscious, dew covered grasses.

The deep black fields, planted earlier, offer the very first perception of what will become massive stands of proud corn, come August.  Little, two-leafed sprouts define straight rows of light green stripes against the dark earth.   Robins offer first signs of spring in late March, but, now, in May these tender corn plants offer first signs of the impending, hot, steamy summer.  But, today, in this cloud world, this cool, rich, nebula of moisture, it is all spring.  The Robins light in the lawn, tilt their heads, listening, perceiving and nabbing an earthworm escaping the saturated soils, and fly back to their hungry babes huddled in nests made of mud and straw in the crooks of branches and atop a little outcrop ledge on the side of an old barn.

This is my world today. I just wanted to share it with you.

copyright 1997