The golden days are coming...

Sherwood Gardens, Baltimore, MD

Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold: It is the first day of spring. Weather lags the transition of the the equators's plane through the center of the sun (light and dark are in equal proportion for the day). But the spring has arrived and with it will come fairer days....

Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour: We missed winter for the most part this year. Thanks El-Nino (did you read the sarcasm there?). Although I lament the lack of snow, and am sad that I didn't find an excuse to have a fire in dark on a cold night with flakes falling about me, I embrace the arrival of spring...

Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief: Bring on the tulips and crocuses, forsythia and dogwoods. Send the smell of oxygen and mud with the warm breezes of April mixed with the occasional smell of wood-burn as brush piles are disposed of. Dispatch the birds from the south, call out the sleeping things, and wake up the turf itself. Life!

Frost's poem, a favorite of mine, speaks to the fleetingness of "golden things." It is true that the golden sunset is sweet and fleeting, that the blooming flower is short with its reproductive glory, that the joyous moments of our lives quickly fade to normalcy... But each of these things leave a residue, a memory, a tangible feeling that is savored after the moment has passed. The days grow longer, the air more sweet, the light more bright, the time to breathe easier. So although nothing gold can stay, if we wait a little longer, another moment arrives, each one in its turn potentially golden. Spring is such a great time for golden moments, full of reminders of life, to break up the constant normalcy of change: life and death, hope and loss, etc. etc. etc...

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

--Robert Frost

So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay: Spring is so brief in New England, not like the mid-atlantic where I grew up. There, the Dogwoods, and all the early flowers, along with the Redbud and Cherries bloomed nearly simultaneously early in April and the weather remained fair all the way to June. August could be brutal mind you, but spring is glorious there, an Eden of sorts. Baseball, flowers, birthdays, grass, and the sweet sweet air of 70 degree days. Regardless of the duration, we are in for the best of days, we don't need to hold our breath, or wring our hands with worry; the balance of light and darkness has tipped in favor (for a while) of warmth and light, and we can look forward to the next golden things arriving any moment now...

Today

If ever there were a spring day so perfect,
so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze

that it made you want to throw
open all the windows in the house

and unlatch the door to the canary's cage,
indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,

a day when the cool brick paths
and the garden bursting with peonies
seemed so etched in sunlight
that you felt like taking

a hammer to the glass paperweight
on the living room end table,

releasing the inhabitants
from their snow-covered cottage

so they could walk out,
holding hands and squinting

into this larger dome of blue and white,
well, today is just that kind of day.

--Billy Collins