(Betula papyrifera)
Why does this, the shortest month of the year, so often feel like the longest of the twelve? Here we are in the borderlands between winter and springtime, weary of ice and snowdrifts, craving light and warmth. It is still below freezing much of the time, icy winds scouring the bare trees and making the branches ring like old iron bells. Now and then, there is a day when temperatures are little higher and there is blue sky and sunlight, but such days are interspersed with many cold, damp and overcast intervals.
Perhaps all the toing and froing is to be expected, for springtime is a puckish wight this far north, and after a brief appearance, she often disappears for several weeks. For all that, late February days have a wonderful way of quieting one's thoughts and breathing rhythms, bringing her back to a still and reflective space in the heart of the living world.
I sat on a log in the woods a few days ago, watching as tattered scraps of birch bark fluttered back and forth in the wind. There were melted patches under the trees here and there, and the morning felt like spring. The lines etched in the birch's paper were words written in a language I could almost understand when my breath slowed and my mind became still. When the morning sun slipped out from behind the clouds, rays of sunlight passed through the blowing strands and turned them golden and translucent, for all the world like elemental stained glass.
When I touched the old tree in greeting, my fingers came away with a dry springtime sweetness on them that lingered for hours. I tucked a thin folio of bark in the pocket of my parka and inhaled its fragrance all the way home.
No comments:
Post a Comment