Signs of Spring

60 degrees today, and bits and pieces of the snow men sculpted five days ago during our winter wallop list toward the muddy lawn like much-licked popsicles:  winter's last gasp, already on  its death-rattle exhale.* 

Me, I'm ready.  

I know I've waxed rhapsodic about the southern spring before, but then again, constancy, thou art a jewel!  I love spring in its leave-taking, when it is perched upon the high-dive that launches it on its spectacular swan-dive into summer; I love it in its full April effulgence,  when the trees are spun-sugar confections and roots extend through moist earth with a minute snare-brush whisper —  we are alive —  but maybe I love it most right now, when everything trembles on the cusp.

Everything?

The transitory moment before the heavens part and rain starts sluicing down, when the clouds are oiled and heaped high and greenish and the wind begins to rise; the blink-and-it's-gone pause between  day and twilight, when the air you walk the dog through is so pink-tinged you long to linger in its embrace; the bit of day before the sun peeks over the housetops, chill and formal, full of birdsong — there is much to be said for the bits of time that lie in the spaces in between. 

Spring is here, but not really, not yet.  The trees are still just angular constructions, festooned with last-year's nests, in disrepair; there's still snow in the birdbath.

But at the same time, a pale rosy haze hovers above the bare branched dogwoods:  next month's buds.  The peonies that never bothered to bloom last year have already let red ropy foliage emerge from the ground.  And once more, as we always do, we begin again; we hope.

Yesterday, two bluebirds lit on the scrub in the park a good portion of the neighborhood avoids.  Today, a hawk, perched on the phone pole.      

*Possibly hurried there by Elder Girleen's single swift well-placed kick on the way to the car before school — oh to be young enough to enjoy the beauty in destruction!