The Promise of Spring

The Ridge is noisy with morsels of color tucked here and there in the woods, along embankments, catching the corner of passive eyes grown accustomed to the gray of winter;

Yellow are the faces of daffodils as they stretch, stretch, stretch their long ruffled necks, peeking around tree trunks, winking from under bushes, flirting with the March wind;

Fuchsia are the berries, overwintered on tender stalks, waving seductively at passing flights of birds, gliding on the boomerang's path home;

Purple are the crocus cups, bashfully nestled in dry grasses, so fragile yet so valiant against the crush of a late winter snow;

Swollen are the tips of branches
Swollen is the dry creek
Swollen is the Earth where gophers have left their calling card

The Ridge is noisy with color, with stirrings of life anew, with deep cleansing breaths that rattle bare branches;

The same sweet, sticky sap rising in ancient trees is rising in me;
Intensity, desire, warmth, connectedness,
humor, joy, longing, passion, play
are pushing through the blanket of straw
cast over my heart

The Ridge is noisy with color, with lessons, with new paths carved by Nature's hand, with the percussive promise of spring.