The last dirty smears of snow line the driveway. Two dirty piles flank the well in the front yard. That's all that's left. And it's not even April yet.
Actually, the snow would've been gone sooner, but it's been mostly cool and overcast lately. We even had a couple of inches of new snow--okay, it was more like slush--Tuesday morning. Emma rolled over in bed and looked out the window at the big white flakes rushing down from the flat gray sky. "Nooooo," she groaned. And she loves snow.
It's hard to get excited about much of anything in this brown and gray season between the sharp, white winter and the fecund green explosion of spring. Even the winter birds have gone quiet.
The buds on the trees, the trilliums in the woods, the frogs and salamanders hidden beneath the leaf litter, everything holds its breath and waits for the signal to go. Waiting for the ground to thaw or waiting for Orion's sword to bury itself in the black forest. Waiting for the sun's warmth to tip the season over into spring. Waiting with a patience I will never possess.
