LII
New feet within my garden go,
New fingers stir the sod;
A troubadour upon the elm
Betrays the solitude.

New children play upon the green,
New weary sleep below;
And still the pensive spring returns,
And still the punctual snow!

~Emily Dickinson

My feet and fingers are itching to get in the garden. Right now, though, it’s a soggy mess–a mud pit churned by months of rain and snow. My seeds wait patiently in their packets–seeds are made of waiting–but I am chafing to put them in the earth.

Outside, birds are unleashing their spring songs. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a flit of movement and turned just in time to recognize the little personage who burst away into flight–a house wren, little investigator of nooks, crannies, and perches, possibly seeking out a place for a nest. House wrens are wonderful busybodies.

The spring is certainly pensive at the moment, unsure whether it’s really here or not. Today looks like spring. The light looks like spring. The birds are singing spring–but just a few days ago, the world was covered in snow.

I want to give myself over to spring, like the birds, pour a full-throated song into the heedless air, but the memory of winter makes me pause. Spring is always there, waiting, beneath winter’s white blanket–but then winter is always waiting, too, deep in the earth, in the cool dark of caverns, its fingers itching and twitching to claw their way back up to the waiting world.