“Reporting for duty,” they say, standing tall and saluting
as they face the sun, straight as can be. Proud. Ready.
The earth around them giggles in joy.
“The daffodils! The daffodils!”
Soon, glorious blooms, miracles on a stem,
will rise from within these green stalwart ranks
to trumpet the arrival of sweet, joyous spring.
And I can hardly wait!

It’s more than this spell of warmth.
Tomorrow, we know, the cold will return,
the clouds will blanket the sky. Even so,
we feel the first breathings of spring.
Maybe something inside us senses
the rise of the sap in the trees,
the first stirring of roots beneath the ground,
the slow waking of tiny seeds.
The seasons know no calendar.
They simply roll, round and round,
dancing to some ancient song,
and something inside us learns to hear
their first, distance notes. Today
I’m sure that I heard spring.

Chance opened a window, and something
inside me whispered, “The Park.”
The words fell in sparkles inside me
and off I went, beneath a blue sky
that, ten minutes later, was covered
by clouds. Exactly what I needed,
although I didn’t know it at the time.
After all the cold, the mildness of the air
was enough. That, and the fact that
I was there, among the trees, my spirit
calmed by the hushed flowing of the creek,
freed now from all but thin patches of ice.
The morning’s subtle hues swept me
with peace, the brittle intensity of my world
reduced to nothing, mere fragments of dreams,
gently dissolving and floating away.

I took advantage of the sliver of time
between the winter’s cold rains
and the promised coming snow
to walk among the pines.
The air, frigid and moist, licked my face
and I was glad for the pines that their bark
is thick. I placed my gloved hand against
the trunk of one and felt its stoic peace
radiating into me. Beneath my boots, bits
of twigs and bark lay on the fading leaves,
and here, beside a fallen spray of pine,
a sprinkle of red berries lay, as if to add color
to the drab gray of the day. A shiver
of delight rose inside me at the sight of them,
How kind, I thought, to offer such a decoration,
a gift for my eyes, and perhaps a treat
for some lucky critter wandering across
the winter forest floor.

Mostly it’s like this: the western slope deep
in fading oak and maple leaves, the brown trunks
of the trees rising to a gray sky. No wonder,
I say to myself, I am beginning to long for spring.
A friend emailed me a single word this morning,
“ROBINS!!!!” it said, painting hope all over
my laptop’s screen. “WONDERFUL!” I replied,
We don’t normally shout at each other like that.
But spotting the first robins calls for exuberance.
So there’s that. The scouts have arrived.
Later in the day, when I gazed out the window
a motion caught my eye. Deer! See them?
There, by the yellow anchor for the utility pole.
Two of them, the doe staring back at me,
freezing the moment in some kind of greeting,
a mutual recognition of each other’s being,
here on this winter hill, between snows.

Some mornings I can’t help but think
how lucky I am to be here,
with feathers and frost on the window,
and all the tales these walls hold. And look!
Another brand new morning!
Imagine! For no reason at all.
Just because, the morning says,
painting a background of pink and blue sky
beyond the sentinel, one of a family of spruce
that watches over me and shelters the birds.
Just because.

I love everything about this jelly.
My best friend gave it to me as a gift last fall.
She made it herself. Can you imagine
how many tiny grapes she had to gather?
I put it away to save for a snowy day
on the long stretch between the holidays
and spring. And today was that day.

I brought it from my pantry, liking even
the feel of it in my hand. In the kitchen,
I held the quilted glass jar up to the window
so the light would shine through its burgundy hues.
Then I brought it up to my eyes so that it eclipsed
everything else, so that all I could see was its color.
I laughed and carried it to the counter.
On its lid in Holly’s magic marker script
it says “Wild Grape 9-24.” I remember
September. I nibbled wild grapes at the wetlands.
Holly said it didn’t set up right;
it was more syrup than jelly. But I didn’t care.
I removed the ring from the top of jar,
my mouth tingling in anticipation.
Then I carefully pried off the lid.
With the tip of a teaspoon
I dipped into the thick red pool
as if I were performing a sacrament.
Then, my eyes shut, paying full attention,
I tasted it.
I nearly swooned at the tangy sweet intensity of it,
tasting like the culmination of autumn’s best productions.
It will, I know, disappear before many days pass.
But I will keep the jar on my window sill
and remember the taste of wild grapes
and think of September and Holly when I see it.

It snowed today, as if to cool the feverish dreams of the trees,
who sensed, in some quiet tree-knowing way,
that on rolling hills much like these in which they stretched their roots, but far away,
thousands of trees were burning.

Let us not take this glistening day for granted, they said to one another,
and they lifted their limbs to the morning sky and sang their thanks.

To my surprise, the world outside my window
is covered in snow, with more shooting down,
and a pair of cardinals waiting, and one of
the little birds, too, as if they were posing
as a Christmas card and if you opened it
rays of laughing joy would leap out
and it would be signed,
“Love, Yes.”

It’s one thing to remember it as a fact: “Winter can be wondrous.”

But immediately my crabby inner voice counters with “Yeah, yeah, and bitter cold, too, and a nuisance. Not my favorite. ” And just like that, I think away “wondrous,” burying it beneath winter’s more tangible features as shivers run down my arms.

Then one day snowflakes the size of dimes begin to fall and they keep on falling until the ground and every twig on every tree is covered with them. And the kid in me makes me put on my boots and jacket and climb the hill to get a look at the scene from within it.

And I realize that “wondrous” is breathing all around me.