We are on the cusp. We balance for this one moment–these few short days–at the place of middle spring.
The grass has greened, but the trees have not yet burst into full leaf. It is fascinating to look at the hillside and see how different varieties progress. In some places bare wooden branches stick up, rimmed with the red of buds. I think these are red maples, so called because of their red buds at spring. Other trees on the hillside provide a sprinkle of pale green, not yet leafed out, but prepared and ready, almost there. The poplars seem especially eager to leaf out, as well as some other varieties of maples. The ragged emptiness of winter branches is almost gone and the vigor of new spring life sits just on edge, ready to burst forth. It is life barely contained.
The early spring flowers have bloomed, snow drops and crocuses long gone, forsythia gone, the daffodils going. The hillside for this brief moment in spring is marked with the brilliant white highlights of juneberry trees. The profusion of their whiteness is almost startling set against the barrenness of the rest of the hillside. It is as if snow has returned to settle on a few trees. This, too, passes quickly. The accents of color that seem most striking in evening have already begun to fade, most of the flowers gone, the rest going. I’m sorry I never got up to the woods to appreciate them more in person.
Spring goes faster than I do. Spring is always rushing from one fleeting show to another, the petals of one bunch of flowers having scarcely come to rest on the ground before the next are bursting out.
There is more to come. In a few weeks the lilacs and apple trees will be in blossom, their fragrance matching their color. The trees will be in leaf, the hillside becoming a carpet of green. But not yet. We savor the coming, while spring has still not run all of its rushing course.
As is the nature of every year, spring will run its course quickly, summer going no slower in the parade of things growing and flowering. It is all like sitting down for a show where time seems to speed up (or vanish all together) so that it seems like you’ve no sooner sat down to enjoy then it is over and you are rising to your feet saying, “What? It’s done? I thought we just got started.” And then winter has arrived.
But for today it is middle spring, and I favor all of April and May for their many blossoming flowers, greening grass, leafing trees, and singing birds. I love the time of year when the weather is fair, the breeze cool, and the mosquitoes not yet here. It is a time when rains fall pleasantly, the ground is not baked hard, nor the days muggy and oppressive (not to mention the nights). We are in middle spring. Enjoy it while you can.
Then I look out the window and think, “Boy, the lawn needs mowing.”
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