Spring was late: I saw its first greening

Every time I go to my mountain home after the thaw, I end up taking the same picture from the upper deck...

...and the same picture from the top of the hill -

I keep hoping to see the fairies that live in this hollowed-out burl -

...and when I'm out walking with granddog, Lola, I always try to see what she's seeing -

I'm always shocked and delighted when we run into wildlife. Sherry posted about seeing 7 deer and said, "The earth as we know it stopped spinning. No one would believe me about Time stopping to sit down in my driveway and saying 'Sherry, go ahead and soak up the moment.'" This is how I felt at the sight of the moose; how I feel when I see life asserting itself through matted-down layers of leaves. It seems like a revolutionary miracle every spring.

The Arch of the Year


High summer's sun raked and cratered the earth
Disinterested, implacable
As you were implacable.


Early frost and some wind bent and stripped the trees
You did not could not bend.


Snow bandaged the hill
But not the sage
And enfolded in its soft slight embrace
All your time and times.


Spring was late: I saw its first greening
I know you smelt the jasmine but did not see the rose
I saw the rose but not the hawthorn.
You did not could not wait for summer.


We waited
And are parched.


Gwendolen Gittens, 1990 (age 67)

der Frühling kommt

I need to tell you how my heart feels about Spring.

My heart has labored, long and hard, 

to love men who were wrong for me.

The love of my children and grandchildren
has pushed my heart right to the breaking edges of my skin.

I have flung my heart out in songs and poems 
and midnight utterings that go unanswered.

Yet when Spring comes, I am willing to fling it all out there again. My heart gets most hopeful and malleable in Spring. I think about my literal heart and the lifeblood rushing in and out, in and out, every moment of my life. I  think about the other things that occupy my heart. My heart is full of hopes, dreams, music, stories, art, friends and children. Is it silly to hope that my very worth is the stuff of the universe; that I have the power to transform sorrow into joy, darkness into light and destruction into new life?  I feel foolish sometimes to list on the sidebar of my blog that I am an irrational optimist, but it's true, as true as SPRING.