A Trickle of Inspiration

It was 7-degrees this morning when I left for work -- cold enough, but by now familiar territory for the mercury this winter.  The lake along the roadside is iced over, and so covered with snow that without the entrance sign announcing the true identity it could easily be mistaken for another whitened cornfield resisting urban sprawl.  Winter has been hard on us this year -- "us" being practically every living thing.  Deer have foraged in vain.  Eagles, according to farm reports, have resorted to carrying off piglets.  Fish are oxygen starved.  And the rest of us are simply worn out and cranky from all the shivering.

Driving on, I noticed something strange.  On the far side of the river that feeds the lake -- as if hugging the outer bank -- open water was moving.  It wasn't much -- a streaming ribbon perhaps 3-feet wide -- but nonetheless water rather than ice.  There is probably a simple explanation -- a power plant, perhaps, spilling off artificial warmth -- but the simple inspiration of it forestalled any further inquiry.  I slowed in the morning traffic, retaining the view as long as I could.

Promise. 
Life, opening up rather than closing down.
A trickle of inspiration.
And the tiny flow of it was just...
...enough.

A Fresh and Lithesome Hallelujah

Whatever else you might say, you have to admit they are resilient.

Early in the week, freezing rain sheathed our part of the world with a crystalline cocoon as heavy as it was beautiful. Heavy, beautiful, and perilously dangerous to walk on, but that latter part is another story. And there was a certain sadness to the encroachment. Watching the ice gradually and increasingly dominate them, you could almost see the branches of the trees weary, weaken, and finally succumb to the weight. Where once the sky had seemed the focus of their worship -- arms outstretched in perpetual "hallelujah" -- now the ground seemed their only attention, drooped in embarrassed capitulation. Some couldn't bear it and simply broke off at the shoulder or elbow; but most simply hung there in seeming despair. Frozen, demoralized zombies, unable to hide; unable to move. Joining the mood, the sky itself turned dank and gray -- the sun hasn't been seen for days. It has been as if the entire landscape needed anti-depressants.

But yesterday an amazing resurrection occurred. Temperatures began to climb -- not dramatically, but adequately -- and though the sun is still conspicuously absent, the ice began to relent. Dripping, running, loosening its grip. The twigs and branches, as though cut free from plaster casts, began to shudder and triumphantly rise. What only the day before had looked like a permanent metaphor of defeat -- woody arms hanging useless and limp -- today exudes a virtual song of resilience, branches and buds once more virile and stretching out and up.

And somehow I feel lighter, too, and more alive -- as though I, too, might be capable of some fresh and lithesome hallelujah.

Welcoming those Avian Heralds of Spring

The robins are back, which in more ways than one afford something of a harbinger of spring. They come at a time when winter has stretched our last nerve and, like a guitar string, is plucking out a monotonous and abrasive tune.
The chill and snowflakes that felt quaint and appropriate and even invigorating in the run up to Christmas by now are feeling interminable and grating and demoralizing. We are, as March blusters along, literally aching for spring.

The robins always surprise me when they appear every year about this time, because any mid-western fool knows that the occasional milder days appearing randomly through the week will very likely be slapped down by yet another bitter turn. This for at least another month. Indeed, last Friday saw mercury in the 50's, while Sunday brought new snow, and Tuesday the low was again near 0. Robins are either incredibly intrepid or dangerously naive to show up this early.

But what I love the most about their appearing -- and what makes their arrival as much of a metaphor as a fact -- is their girth. Everyone of them seems to be carrying a dozen or more eggs. They are huge -- bellies swollen almost into caricatures. After somehow managing to get airborne, they clunk back down gracelessly to the earth to hunt for food or, more likely, simply to rest. And there they move lunkishly across the lawn as feathery promises -- pregnant with both the assurance and the foretaste of the spring that is -- one of these days -- to come.

Welcome back, you comical, beautiful, very pregnant avian heralds. We have been waiting.

Summer Longing in the Making

Wearing comfortable sweats and curled up on the sofa before a warming fire, I watch the falling snow. It's been coming down since before 6:15 a.m. when I dropped Lori off at the market to meet her ride. Already the deck was thoroughly blanketed in white, and the lawn, at least what I could see of it from the porchlight glow, was white as well.

And it is April 12. The belly-swollen robins must be scratching their heads. As if to remind us that we are not in charge -- that our wishes are not commands -- winter has returned. The forecasters are assuring us that this will be a brief visit-- 70-degrees is the mid-week prediction -- but for now it is chilly, wet, windy and white. I think back with a smile to that first glimpse of flake -- early December, or was it November? -- and how exciting it felt. I love snow; indeed, winter has been one of the attractions of this home for this southern boy who seldom experienced it. But what I'm now confirming is that it was less the winter, itself, than the contrasting seasons it helped set apart.

And I'm ready now for the contrast. I have known for years now that there is no more beautiful spring than the one which follows a bitter winter. Bitter this winter has been. I'm ready now for that beautiful spring. I can wait, of course. I have little choice. But my imagination is alive with the colors forthcoming, and the singing I hear from intrepid birds even now only makes the longing deeper.

Just to galvanize my patience, I think ahead to those late summer days when the temperature, like a sweater caught on a splinter, will almost certainly and humidly hang at triple digits, leaving me desperate for a cooling breeze. I'll look back wistfully on this mid-April snow...

...and laugh.

A Winter Morning Song

It's early, the dawn only beginning to dilute the night sky, and there is a bird singing in the tree outside. I suppose there is nothing particularly novel about that, but it is February in Iowa and I haven't heard birds for months. Temperatures have played between single-digits and sub-zero for the better part of a month now, with snow perched on branches more commonly than feathers. It is, though, February 2 -- Groundhog Day. Perhaps the bird is our version of Punxsutawney Phil, though without any precedent I can't guess whether singing predicts an early spring or an extended winter. At this hour of the morning there are certainly no shadows to be seen.

Rather than prognostication, I prefer to hear the bird's singing as encouragement and inspiration. Brittle branches, paralyzing temperatures, and black ice on sidewalks and streets are not the only truths. In the midst of it all is singing -- every now and then; once in awhile; on a random, naked limb -- singing. And suddenly I am too.

Folk singer Peter Mayer, who we will be blessed to host for a concert in June, glimpses the same realization this way:

When winter’s gray is on the sky
Rust upon the leaves that lie
Red on the last few berries clinging
Brown on the branch where the bitter wind’s singing
Even when white obscures the scene
Still, in winter, there is green

Death may raise its voice today
O but life will have its say
Speaking in lovers and in children
In poets pens and philosopher’s visions
Life is a planet’s daring dream
Earth’s devotion, spoken in green

Still, in winter, there is green...
...and a song.