Springy

Today we noticed the leggy foal in the middle of a field. She was too new to know that her mama would make a dandy windbreak and so stood, wobbling, blinking into the breeze, feeling the March turf under her barely steady hooves.

We spotted pussy willows, fuzzy catkins stretching out in cautious friendliness, looking for tender pets from fat little wondering fingers. There were red buds aimed skyward, barely restraining their unready selves from popping open too soon. Already there are a few cherry blossoms, waving and teasing from nooks in yards, anxious to get on with it, hesitant to be too quick.

The bunnies aren't out yet -- perhaps they're waiting for the lawn to show itself properly succulent. We've been preparing for their arrival by listening to The Velveteen Rabbit woven together with the loveliest backdrop of piano, and reading up on Peter Cottontail and Benjamin Bunny -- they're cousins you know. Somehow they all seem to wait for us out in the shrubbery, alternately loved into threadbareness and dressed in cunning little coats and shoes.

The frogs in the hollow are noisy, nearly a cacophony. The crocuses are up, crowded together and bobbing in a dense Happy to Be Here party. The daffodil buds are reaching longingly for their friends and neighbors, stretching their yellowgreen necks out to gently touch noses. Tulips and hyacinths edge out a little further every day, inquiring as to the weather.

Everywhere, fat tufts of moss fluoresce, pushing aside the dried grasses, those leftover winter widows, their dried sadness bowing them to the earth as the old cedes to the new. Pansies smile, blinking into the sunshine, their faces fresh and rain-flecked, waiting, persistently optimistic and expectant, for the family of buds beneath to join them up top.

The sun began the day in a pushy display, pouring itself in at the windows with dancing abandon, calling little girls to flit about and do magical rainbow chalk drawings on the driveway. Later, the clouds would flee ahead of changing winds, the horizon showing steely gray then brilliant blue then fading slowly into rosy apricot.

It's dark now. The kids are sleeping. The garbage is out. The lights are low. Of course there's the laundry and dishes, the tidying and organizing, all the wrapping up of the day that's done and the readying of us all for the one to come. But the house is quiet, save for the ticking of the clock and the rhythm of the keyboard underneath my fingers.

Well. I'm off then. Among other things, the spoils from the foray to the shampoo section at Target need putting away. There are books to pack up for the bigger kids to use during therapy time in the morning. And a bed with flannel sheets is calling my name.

Rest well. And remember to kiss someone goodnight. Maybe even an extra time or two, maybe a lingering, lusty, springy kiss. Smiles. What're you waiting for?

G'night.