Feeling Spring

Maybe spring doesn’t officially start for another three days. But I wore shorts yesterday, I saw a Robin flitting about through the leafless trees, I heard Canada Geese honking as they flocked back from their winter homes, and green things are starting to push through the ground. We spent this weekend trying out different playgrounds, Ella had her first go at a swing and Jay walked barefoot outside. Spring is here. Yay!

This is a little early for the warm weather to stay, but it is in the works, and that’s the important thing. We’ll get several more cold snaps, I am sure, before spring works out all the kinks. Still, we got the call from our community garden organizer last week about what size plot we want (half plot this year) and we picked up seeds and checked out gardening books from the library. This year we’ll be doing squash, potatoes, tomatoes, broccoli, onions, lettuce, radishes, carrots, pumpkins, eggplant, Swiss chard, Brussels sprouts… and M&Ms.

I came across some poetry I wrote last year, for a class. At the time I thought it was a lame idea, a lame assignment, a lame class. Some of that may still be true. But reading back over the poems, I enjoyed them. I hope you will too:

I Think I’ll Plant a Garden This Year

I think I’ll plant a garden this year,
With M&Ms and ginger beer.
And six rows of vanilla beans,
To help shade the fudge ice cream.

Into the ground I’ll work butterscotch,
And eagerly, gummy worms I’ll watch.
They’ll aerate the soil and make it rich,
And how about chocolate for the drainage ditch?

I may be enticed to plant a snickers bar,
Though deer can smell caramel from pretty far.
So maybe I’ll just stick to Almond Joy,
Oreos and Chips Ahoy.

Of course, then I’ll have to reap and sow,
I may be sore from head to toe.
And then the mud and muck and dirt!
It may just ruin my pants and shirt.

Actually, this garden thing may be too much strain,
Planting, weeding, and waiting for rain.
It is all quite time consuming, I hear.
I think perhaps I’ll wait till next year.

On a Winter Day

The snow rains down on an impossibly icy day.
The trees are bare except a thin mask of white.
My cheeks sting from the cold. My toes ache.
I shiver. I breathe.

As I walk, the ice cracks beneath my boots.
Rabbit tracks wind through the snow and disappear. Magic.
I wonder where on Earth it went. Maybe a hawk’s supper?
I shiver. I breathe.

A gust of glacial wind blows clear through me.
I am ripped from my vanilla world of comfort and warmth.
Distressing yet strangely enticing. Beckoning.
I breathe. I walk on.


Sometimes Life Just Gets In The Way

Sometimes life just gets in the way
Of doing what really needs to be done.
Like walking through the grass barefoot
And watching fireflies.
Like seeing the magic of spring unfold,
And breathing cool clean air after a storm.
Like enticing a turtle out of its shell
And tracing mice tunnels through the snow.
Like noticing that cherry blossoms
Smell faintly like vanilla
And porcupines smell like anything but.
Like feeling dirt under your nails.
And hearing chickadees pronounce their own name.
Like smelling the damp earth
and knowing that soon there will be wildflower cacophony
on roadside ditches and unkempt lawns.
Sometimes life just gets in the way.