Jacks are dancing

Jack-in-the-pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum)

In winter, snow covers the shady ground down by the creek for months at a time, and the little tributary's voice is silent under its blanket of ice. The sheltering trees on the hillside above are bare and silent.

In springtime, the lovely, crumbly, dark earth is revealed in all its elemental fragrance, and the water sings a raucous ditty as it gambols downhill with its tumbling freight of winter detritus, broken twigs and and dessicated leaves.

Hallelujah, now the "jacks" are dancing there in all their stripey magnificence. Wood ducks are nesting on a pond nearby, and the forest is a towering green cathedral again. Sunlight flickers through the leaves, and choirs of grosbeaks hop from branch to branch in the overstory, singing their hearts out.

Winter was all right, and we got through it, even managed to do a little inward blooming now and then.  Spring was late, brief and rather wet, but sunlight and warmth have returned to the Two Hundred Acre Wood at last. We can do this, verily, merrily, we can do this, oh yes,we can.