February is finally over, and it went out with a series of violent thunderstorms that melted almost all of the snow and flooded a lot of the local roads, delaying school by two hours. When I went to the school to pick up a kid at 5, I drove over a bridge with a river running fast, swirling just inches below the roadway.
We can now see yellow, squashed grass for the first time since the beginning of December. I just found a collar one of our cats lost late in the fall. And despite a few isolated piles of melty ice in the shadows, we can see yellowy-green shoots beginning to poke up in sheltered places next to the house.
Why Kid Yourself
Snow, that white anesthesia, evaporates.
It's gone like a lover after the morning paper.
An entire mountain blushes.
Everything's been at it.
Embarrassing bodies are pushing out.
Plants, animals, swollen with excess
are straining to keep their balance.
Two hot days and the populations explodes off the circuits,
jams the sewers.
Afterbirth reeks in the swamps, gluts the rivers.
And everything that lived through last year
is out fattening itself, eating the babies.
Those "two hot days" won't be here for a while, but it's nice to see the world in something besides black and white.
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9 comments:
Absolutely! Glad to see the sun today.
"Embarrassing bodies." Yup.
It's not the "embarrassing bodies" suddenly revealed when the snow melts away that I worry about, but the more prosaic deposits suddenly uncovered for me to step in.
Last year it unveiled the destruction wrought by voles. This morning I was serenaded by a cardinal. Welcome March!
When I lived up north, the miracle of green grass shoots poking thru ugly brown-crusted snow never failed to thrill me.
I loved this poem and its imagery! Spring is "busting out" all over! (Or, at least I hope it does soon.)
I keep having to remind myself that one swallow does not make a summer, but seeing the grass again after months of snow is making me dorkily excited.
Carol, as I was backing out of the garage, suddenly I saw something shiny in my rear view mirror and I slammed on the brakes, thinking a big truck had just pulled in behind me on the driveway. Then I saw it was the sun.
Harriet, it's such a good description, isn't it? They're pale yellow and so exposed-looking.
Unfocused Me, oh yeah; we don't have dogs around, but we do find small rodent bodies that the cats left when they were no more fun. And I occasionally have to clean up deer poop on the deck.
Freshhell, we get the vole bodies instead. Our cats are so useful.
Nancy, the suddenness of this melting was part of the fun. We do still have black piles of ice in corners.
Jenners, now I'm singing that song. So appropriate for a house with teenagers.
Jenny, that's life in the north!
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