Birds know already that it is rightful springtime. Suddenly, they zoom quick as a thought across this pale blue sky, gather in busy conversations among the branches, hunt for seeds, full of bustle and energy.
Prairie smoke, wild columbine, pussytoes and penstemons unfold purple-green leaves on the muddy soil, encircled by melting fields of ice. Their season of sleep is over. The sun moves into them, pouring from a golden goblet of fire that quickens their green veins.
The Oak King is rising, the Holly King dreams. The sun now rises due East, edging ever northward on its journey to the summer solstice.
My annual seeds wait in bright packets: gaillardia, black-eyed susan vine. Zinnia. Brazilian vervain, cleome. When frosts are gone and soil is warm, I will plant a riot of their butterfly colors to spring forth among the purples, pinks and yellows.
For now, they sleep, as I do; even on the first day of spring.
The truth is, if I were planted in the garden, I would be one of those species that has seemingly died over the winter, causing much consternation. Will it emerge or not; and if so, when?
Patience is required. Perhaps this species stirs only when May magics the hawthorns and crabapples into their splendid white blooms, waiting until all the world has taken up its spring song.
On the other hand, transformation could wait for June, or July, or another season altogether.
Wildflowers, trees, tulips, selves all unfold in their own good time, responding to the light, the air; to their own mysterious, internal knowing.
The life that inhabits all in this world sleeps and wakens as it will, when it will. You can't reason with it, can't force it. All you can do is work and wait, like a woman trying to shed the snakeskin of winter in spring. Wait with patience, with none. With the childlike faith you usually reserve for making wishes.
As you wait, you pretend that you are the person who can simply swallow a spring wind to grow leaves in your heart.
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