From The House of Edward

A Song of Spring

I have lost my place in the book I am reading. My knitting lies lonely on the floor by my chair. I stare out my window at nothing but grey. Grey ground, grey sky, grey mood.

The remnants of the recent snowfall are dotted here and there - vestiges of a once noble army of cheerful snowmen, now half melted, missing heads and arms - a forlorn tribe of lumpy mutants, rather pitiful to see. The extravagant cabbages that adorned the autumn garden have dwindled in the freezing air to fist sized globules of purple, more suitable for the compost heap than the flower show,.

Even the stalwart rosemary bush has perished under the stabbing ice.

It has happened. I am tired of being cold.

I want to see my toes again. Ten, happy pink digits released from their boots and slippers, set free from their woolen socks, strolling barefoot through new green grass and clover.

I am tired of soup. I want to eat honeydew melon and fresh peaches.

I am tired of hot chocolate. I want lemonade and fruit punch.

I want to open my windows.

I want to feel the breeze in my hair and not worry that my ears will get cold.

I want to wear white linen and big straw hats.

I want to put a gardenia in my lapel and go on a picnic.

I want, no I need, to sit on a beach with a glass full of fizzy water, lulled to sleep by the crash of the waves.

I can only think it is time for such feelings. Growing up in a part of the world that experiences four distinct seasons, my body clock must by now be perfectly timed to the schedule of the earth, for I feel a shy, infinitesimal change just beginning to stir. It is there in the way that the light lingers a moment longer each day, dancing through the windowpanes, painting vernal shadows on the Morris wallpaper. It is present in the flock of robins that I saw in a neighbor’s front garden only yesterday, carefully tip-toeing along midst the patches of melting snow. And most telling of all, at times when they think no one listens, the tall trees are now humming a curious tune - deep and low, almost inaudible. I catch a bit of it just before sleep.

It is a song of Spring.

Painting above by George Frederick Watts