There’s more light on the corral every day now. Each afternoon, as I leave campus, I take the measure of it–the level of dusk at 5 o’clock, or 4. Soon, I’ll be able to come home with enough daylight to begin an evening longeing routine for Mattie and Sam, to get all of us in shape for riding season in May.
Last night, I ordered seeds–radishes, my favorite Chianti Rose tomatoes, Laciato kale, zukes and yellow crookneck squash, and an assortment of flowers that I may be able to convince to grow on the steep bank behind the house.
These are all signs of the easing of the season–and then there’s Groundhog Day. I wrote about it here last year or the year before, but it’s a holiday that has a certain resonance in my memory of being a teenager in Central Pennsylvania: the smell of mud and manure, anticipating the first crocuses, and the ludicrous seriousness of the Slumbering Groundhog Lodge in Quarryville, PA. I tell the story to my students every year–how the groundhog sees a blinding flash of light, sees his shadow, bolts back into his hole, and we have six more weeks of winter. Or he doesn’t see the shadow and we have six more weeks till spring. In either case, here in the Interior, we have three months till break-up, so we look for other signs–our moods lift, for example, as the sun cycles higher above the horizon.
You may be socked in with snow right now of mired in the bad news of the world. What images keep you hopeful of spring?
Post a poem in response to this challenge and I’ll add it to this post.
Tags: not complaining, poetry, Psyche, spring, winter, writing, writing prompt
Mattie's Pillow 
February 3, 2011 at 1:12 am
I’m sitting down to write an essay now, so no real possibility of any poems today. Our sun is cycling higher as well. High enough today to make facing these last vestiges of winter possible–provided of course they are only a few more weeks long.