*Sigh*
However desperate it may be, the subject is nonetheless accurate. Walking this afternoon to my car, I crossed the sidewalk - flooded with snowmelt and rain - and then a narrow strip of tender, muddy earth. This, after the news predicted the possibility of school-closing snow or sleet.
Spring is not here, but it's on the way. And this makes me happy in the long run, the short run, and with respect to the persistent relevance of Hal Borland's Twelve Moons of the Year. Today, at least, it seemed like an updated translation of Virgil's Eclogues; a magical, eternal almanac that's never wrong; the Soothsayer's Guide to the Equinox.
Here's today's installment:
"The Signs" ~ March 5
The temptation is strong, on a bright day in early March, to go looking for signs, green signs. The air has a chill, but the sun rises almost east and the shadows of the naked trees point a new hopeful direction. Brooks begin to burble, at least by midday. Surely there must be some quickening of green life. One goes to look, beside the brook and the road and in the meadow and woodland.
There are signs, but only a few. Spring is cautious. Our March is not a green month. In a sheltered cove beside a flowing brook there are a few blades of new grass in fine withered clumps. In a boggy place are the primitive purplish-green hoods of skunk cabbage, which has no respect for ice and little respect for time. Beside a sun-warmed rock in the edge of the woods are small, young leaves of the hardy wood-nettle. But no violets, no anemones, no bloodroot. Dig in the woodland litter and you may find their budding roots, but it is promise that you find, not green, only green to come.
The quickening is there. But it is a response we feel and sense rather than see. The earth, the soil itself, has begun to lose its cold and gather warmth. The slow pulse has begun imperceptibly to quicken. There is a restlessness down at the roots, a stirring of slow sap. And that is where the green begins. The green itself is a precious thing, not to be trusted in March.
There are signs, yes; but few green ones. The going and the looking is a sign itself, a sign of vernal hope. The green will come, inevitable now. We feel the quickening, which is why we go.
*Sigh* again.
In terms of genre, it is fitting that the disastrous portents of climate change should sound like a science-fiction novel. Such events would spell the end for the poetry of words - and actualities - like "burble" and "skunk cabbage, which has no respect for ice."
Also, that line "The green itself is a precious thing, not to be trusted in March." That's just good execution on Borland's part. Starts you off all innocent and then closes with the defense against a cruel deception - winter in spring's clothing - a worldly warning to those who would be taken in by the coquettish flirtations of a lamb-like lion. Reminds me of Emily Dickinson's "Indian Summer," except, you know, without all the agnostic overtones.
More tangibly, this is what's at stake: our accumulated wisdom, our personal understanding of the planet and of ourselves. And humanity's connection to nature - already so distant and disaffected - will become, at best, a bedtime story, strictly to be doubted by the young and old alike. Casual exploitation and ennui replaced by raw, conscious animosity and the ninth-grade literary analysis of "man vs. nature" writ large times a million.
But, as I've said, it hasn't happened yet (so long as you're not an Inuit or a resident of Tuvalu). In the meantime, we still have spring. I am going to enjoy it this year more than ever.
*Bonus points to those readers who picked up on the coincidental similitude between the editorial and lines from The Highlander. There can be only one. Borland came first.
There are signs, but only a few. Spring is cautious. Our March is not a green month. In a sheltered cove beside a flowing brook there are a few blades of new grass in fine withered clumps. In a boggy place are the primitive purplish-green hoods of skunk cabbage, which has no respect for ice and little respect for time. Beside a sun-warmed rock in the edge of the woods are small, young leaves of the hardy wood-nettle. But no violets, no anemones, no bloodroot. Dig in the woodland litter and you may find their budding roots, but it is promise that you find, not green, only green to come.
The quickening is there. But it is a response we feel and sense rather than see. The earth, the soil itself, has begun to lose its cold and gather warmth. The slow pulse has begun imperceptibly to quicken. There is a restlessness down at the roots, a stirring of slow sap. And that is where the green begins. The green itself is a precious thing, not to be trusted in March.
There are signs, yes; but few green ones. The going and the looking is a sign itself, a sign of vernal hope. The green will come, inevitable now. We feel the quickening, which is why we go.
Also, that line "The green itself is a precious thing, not to be trusted in March." That's just good execution on Borland's part. Starts you off all innocent and then closes with the defense against a cruel deception - winter in spring's clothing - a worldly warning to those who would be taken in by the coquettish flirtations of a lamb-like lion. Reminds me of Emily Dickinson's "Indian Summer," except, you know, without all the agnostic overtones.
More tangibly, this is what's at stake: our accumulated wisdom, our personal understanding of the planet and of ourselves. And humanity's connection to nature - already so distant and disaffected - will become, at best, a bedtime story, strictly to be doubted by the young and old alike. Casual exploitation and ennui replaced by raw, conscious animosity and the ninth-grade literary analysis of "man vs. nature" writ large times a million.
But, as I've said, it hasn't happened yet (so long as you're not an Inuit or a resident of Tuvalu). In the meantime, we still have spring. I am going to enjoy it this year more than ever.
*Bonus points to those readers who picked up on the coincidental similitude between the editorial and lines from The Highlander. There can be only one. Borland came first.
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