It Was All Fish and Turtles

Geese begin to arrow and feather towards low lying waters and lakes. The sky burgeons with the migratory trails of snowbirds returning from warmer climes. Earlier than normal, the red winged blackbird puffs and trills from the remnants of cattails and marsh grasses. Dawns now slice the horizon with mango light, finding me in the still work earlier and earlier. The romance of nature simply cannot be outdone and I am wooed accordingly.

Under the Crow Moon, I dreamt of a lover's wife saying, “Grow up. It's time to be an adult for the sake of creation.” I am interested in that which is gentle, such as babbling brooks and the conversations of trees. No more fighting – not for love – not for any perceived lack. Now the smell of morning.

Daffodil shoots add inches per day despite snowy forecasts and warnings. Every year I am excited for the first blooms and every year I freak out when yellow's tenderness, yellow's first kiss, yellow's silken hope is blanketed with snow. It's funny how I do not remember the first blooms from growing up on the lake. Spring back then was all fish and turtles. It was muddy dirt roads and great blue herons along the shore.

Either way, grace is never antiquated. At times it seems one is felled by fate, but really, it's all about the flow of rivers: the spate of spring, the oasis of summer, the kaleidoscope mirror of fall and the contraction of winter. One isn't destroyed or ravaged by destiny or chance. One wakens unto the awareness and flow of seasons. We, along with the waters of life, ebb and brim in a ceaseless creation of that which cannot be undone.