The Newness of Spring

It’s the end of March, and John Deere sits in the barn, waiting. 

As I look out my kitchen door, his backside faces me. 

He’s tethered to the corn crib by a ten-foot logging chain,

so as to discourage pilferers from hauling him away. 

John has sat in that spot since November, the last time I mowed. 

That workhorse has resigned himself to:

     a heavy dose of winter solitude

          enduring freezing temperatures

               and pouting daily from being cold and ignored. 

The sun rises earlier, warming John’s behind for longer periods,

before settling itself in the West later in the day. 

Along the hillsides surrounding these parts, I hear groaning winds

moving swiftly through aging trees, standing on the horizon. 

It has worked hard this month:

     snapping off dead tree limbs

          slamming them to the ground—

               scattering them in all directions

                    for somebody else to pick up.  

And between John and me, I can see tufts of emerald 

very near the color of John himself, springing to life. 

Most mornings still have a heavy sprinkling of frost. 

But once the sun’s rays bear down,

that milky glaze will disappear in minutes. 

The yellow daffodils are in full bloom. 

They pay no attention to the frost at all—

just shake it off like it’s ordinary household dust. 

Like everything else in nature, they have a job to do,

and there isn’t a lot that will suppress their determination.  

All the trees and bushes stand in leafless silence,

wrapped tightly in their bumpy gray and brown coats of bark,

It’s as if they can sense that everyone and everything

has grown tired of seeing them clothed

in the same dismal dress for endless months. 

They await the right moment for spring’s sap to trickle

through their many vessels, delivering newness of life

to the tips of even their tiniest branches. 

A slight wind passes through, and all is quiet. 

Big tree branches and tiny bushes tremble in the hush. 

The creeping phlox is coming to life along the hillside. 

and the tender peonies have already 

forced their way through the earth’s dense surface. 

It’s an exciting time indeed for the newness of spring!

©️Copyright 2022 By David Lee Thompson