A Spring Growl

If there comes a little thaw,
Still the air is chill and raw,
Here and there a patch of snow,
Dirtier than the ground below,
Dribbles down a marshy flood;
Ankle-deep you stick in mud,
In the meadows while you sing,
"This is Spring."
-Christopher Pearce Cranch


I managed to spend almost a week in my sister's house with my sick niece without catching her respiratory virus and yet came down with a intestinal virus the minute I got back home. After two days of being house bound I stepped outside this morning and found that Spring had arrived. The temperature was in the upper forties with a brisk wind blowing from the south. That wind brought with it the earthy smell of damp ground and, for the first time, a refreshing amount of humidity. I was on my way to the grocery store and the sound of water streaming off roof tops followed me through the streets as I made my way there. Almost all of the snow (14 inches) that fell last week has either evaporated or melted into the earth. The snow that had been plowed into large mounds throughout town is still still here but those mounds now looked like gritty, icy, four-foot-high dirty snowcones dropped by a group of giant careless children. Spring has definitely sprung.