Rum-Rumming Up My Street, or Signs of Spring

Each spring when I first hear him rum-rumming up my street, I know the man in the next block has retrieved his motorcycle from winter storage and (despite traces of road salt and sand that remain) is trying out the now ice-free, snow-free roadways.  He comes up my hilly dead-end street, loud as can be, quiets a moment as he reaches the top and turns around, and then races like bloody hell back down to the main road.  I hear him, too, going up the next hill two blocks away as he then roars off to I-don't-know-where.  Almost as well as putting away my snow shovel (which I haven't done yet), I know that spring has now arrived.

And though heaps of snow remain, I get out into the garden and begin the raking process.  Autumn's oak leaves huddle in damp corners, no early chives yet appear, and leaves from last summer's day-lilies lie swirled like wet ribbons.  But the first daffodil shoots are up.  And the crocuses are in bloom.

There is a new freedom in the air--the same that sends the motorcycle man racing about.  It's what I like to call the sense of possibility.  That, too, is surely a sign of spring.  When the sidewalks, no longer choked with ice, are good for walking once again.  And the sun--and our temperament--feels just that much brighter.  And though we had a snow-storm only four days ago--a great April Fool's joke, or so it seemed--by then the earth was warm enough that by mid-day when the storm seemed to shrug its shoulders and say, "Oh, let's just forget the whole thing," nothing was sticking and someone even mentioned seeing the sun peek out. 

It's also that migration time of year when volunteers are called upon to join salamander road crossing brigades.  And when Canada Geese, back again, poke about the fields.


     
And though people were out ice fishing on the river just a week or two ago, now the shelters are being brought in.

Edward Thomas, the English poet (1878-1917) wrote this:


          THAW


          Over the land freckled with snow half-thawed
          The speculating rooks at their nests cawed
          And saw from elm-tops, delicate as flower of grass,
          What we below could not see, Winter pass.


A friend just emailed me this quote by Henry Van Dyke:  "The first day of spring is one thing, and the first spring day is another.  The difference between them is sometimes as great as a month."  


Around here, anyway.