Awakening

Spring?

I’ve been in a tumult lately, things being what they sometimes are, but the snow is finally receding revealing pockets of grass like tonsures against the white. A family of deer comes down to graze under the ancient apple tree. Their coats have gotten so dark! My theory: dark colors convert light to heat. They do it to stay warm. I know it’s mating season because the squirrels keep bounding about like they’re on club drugs. Everywhere stuff is awakening. A cardinal is building a nest in the rhododendron as it does every year. The toffee colored creek swings brashly by, and I stand on the porch and marvel at its bravado. I wish I could go out and really explore but these old bones won’t let me go that far. I’d like to know life at this stage, to be viscerally aware of everything under my feet and what all is in the process of becoming around me. Spring lurks in every breath. At times the tumult makes sense.