the winter pulled me in, swaddled me close.
i sweat through the shovelling, i shivered before letting sleep take me under.
and now. well. spring is coming. here's hal borland....
"March comes, a kind of interregnum, winter's sovereignty relaxing, spring not yet in control. But the pattern is now established. The incredible but annually commonplace change that is life eternally renewed has begun to stir. Out of the cold and dormant earth will come the leaf, the blossom, and the twig. Out of the pupa, the egg, and the womb will come the palpitant swarming of gauzy wing, chitinclad body, feathers, and fur. The pulse of plasma with its green chlorophyll or red hemoglobin begins its slow vernal throb. Sap stirs. Blood lives. The protoplasm of life begins to quicken. It is a deliberate process with its own rhythms and responses that are unchanged over the eons. Only man, keying his life to his clocks and calendars, is impatient. The bud and the egg can wait, for a safe temperature or a precise span of daylight.
Man measures; they respond.
And for all man's cast store of facts, he still cannot alter that response. To grow a blade of grass he must start with a seed or a root, then wait. To hatch a bird he must start with an egg, which contains its own inflexible schedule. March comes and the sap quickens down at the root of life. Buds, set on the twig last summer, begin to swell toward April. In the woodland's litter and debris there is a slight stir. Ice melts on warm afternoons. Water begins to flow. Chill darkness checks the slow awakening, but another day starts the deliberate throb again, the slight breath of change, the incredible, inevitable renascence of life. "
this morning, as i was driving i noticed blue hoses emerging from an old tree by the side of the road. the tree looked dead.
and yet, i know what time of year this is....
not knowing much about getting sap from the trees in the spring to make syrup... i grew up in new england, and i know this much: that when the tin pails, and white plastic buckets start hanging from the trees, it's that time.
but, not knowing much about this... i began to wonder... how does taking the sap out by hose effect the smallest branches at the tip top of the tree? isn't that the life force, the juice of the earth, that's being taken? just above the root?
and of course, how does this metaphor play with me? for, i, too, have hoses (of many colors, shapes and sizes) emerging from my trunk (just above the root). and yes. there is life force, juice of the earth that is seeping from them into 'tin pails' and 'white plastic buckets'. how are my smallest branches at the tip top of my spirit doing?
i sweat through the shovelling, i shivered before letting sleep take me under.
and now. well. spring is coming. here's hal borland....
"March comes, a kind of interregnum, winter's sovereignty relaxing, spring not yet in control. But the pattern is now established. The incredible but annually commonplace change that is life eternally renewed has begun to stir. Out of the cold and dormant earth will come the leaf, the blossom, and the twig. Out of the pupa, the egg, and the womb will come the palpitant swarming of gauzy wing, chitinclad body, feathers, and fur. The pulse of plasma with its green chlorophyll or red hemoglobin begins its slow vernal throb. Sap stirs. Blood lives. The protoplasm of life begins to quicken. It is a deliberate process with its own rhythms and responses that are unchanged over the eons. Only man, keying his life to his clocks and calendars, is impatient. The bud and the egg can wait, for a safe temperature or a precise span of daylight.
Man measures; they respond.
And for all man's cast store of facts, he still cannot alter that response. To grow a blade of grass he must start with a seed or a root, then wait. To hatch a bird he must start with an egg, which contains its own inflexible schedule. March comes and the sap quickens down at the root of life. Buds, set on the twig last summer, begin to swell toward April. In the woodland's litter and debris there is a slight stir. Ice melts on warm afternoons. Water begins to flow. Chill darkness checks the slow awakening, but another day starts the deliberate throb again, the slight breath of change, the incredible, inevitable renascence of life. "
this morning, as i was driving i noticed blue hoses emerging from an old tree by the side of the road. the tree looked dead.
and yet, i know what time of year this is....
not knowing much about getting sap from the trees in the spring to make syrup... i grew up in new england, and i know this much: that when the tin pails, and white plastic buckets start hanging from the trees, it's that time.
but, not knowing much about this... i began to wonder... how does taking the sap out by hose effect the smallest branches at the tip top of the tree? isn't that the life force, the juice of the earth, that's being taken? just above the root?
and of course, how does this metaphor play with me? for, i, too, have hoses (of many colors, shapes and sizes) emerging from my trunk (just above the root). and yes. there is life force, juice of the earth that is seeping from them into 'tin pails' and 'white plastic buckets'. how are my smallest branches at the tip top of my spirit doing?
just fine.
after all. in addition to a trunk, and branches, the tree that is me, has roots galore. stretching this way and that into deep rich soil. and they are drawing from a source with no end. infinite life and cycles, and winter and spring, and that mystical thing that happens while i shovel and sleep.
that shift.
when winter graciously bows down to the raucous drive we call spring. oh how we all love to watch it dance into town. here it comes. we cannot, nor will not, stop it.
so sap?
i have it to spare. and after all... somehow (i'm not quite sure how, but i don't need to know anyway...) in the end, that sharing of my life force, of the juice of the earth...it turns into something very
very sweet.
so it is.
