Drizzle

As first color begins to chase away shadows and illuminate the hills signs of life can be seen emerging from the darkness wherever I turn.

“Spring would not be spring without bird songs.” - Francis M. Chapman

Bird songs swell from every tree and shrub.

The temperature and weather as well as the season have some influence on the morning’s first songsters. Although the past few days have caused us to think about packing away our winter clothing and the night has been comparatively warm - a low of forty degrees - it is overcast and cloudy this morning. Rain is expected by mid-morning and there is a bite to the damp air.

“The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day.
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You're one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
a cloud come over the sunlit arch,
And wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you're two months back in the middle of March.”
- Robert Frost

This is a transitional time when winter is hanging on yet spring is rushing forward. Today the early calls come from high overhead as Canada Geese head for the dam to spend their day. String after string of the geese pass by, their silhouettes scarcely standing out against the layers of clouds they are passing through. Nearby a Pileated Woodpecker begins beating tattoo against the huge stump of a broken White Pine and the Crows sound their morning wake-up calls. I stand at the window gazing at the same trees that meet my view nearly every day. These same trees yet they are not quite the same. Light, clouds, shadows, snow, rain each adds a new dimension to the view.


“The first day of spring is one thing, and the first spring day is another. The difference between them is sometimes as great as a month.” --- Henry Van Dyke

I experience triste in full measure. The calendar may say that it is spring but I have the winter doldrums. I want to walk in the sunshine under a canopy of green, to sit under a comfortable old tree and watch the river rush past. Instead I am sitting in gloom that no electric light can erase. Drizzle … yes, drizzle.

How I am longing to turn off the heat, to pick fresh lettuce and new peas. Oh yes, I am longing for spring.

“Science has never drummed up quite as effective
a tranquilizing agent as a sunny spring day.”- W. Earl Hall