Where are the trumpets and horns? Where is the drummer with his marching band? Yesterday was the first day of spring, and we had built it up to a frenzy in our minds. Spring! Spring! It’s all anyone has talked about for the past two weeks. And then . . . nothing happened. The wind kept blowing and it snowed today. There were no daffodils or tulips or crocuses. The sky was overcast with no sign of sun.
But I went to the woods as I always do to see what I could
see. As I looked at the still-frozen landscape,
I realized that it took a trained eye to see the beginning of spring in Maine. It doesn’t come with flowers or sweet-scented
bushes. Most of the birds are still in
their overwintering spots in the south.
Most rivers and ponds are still frozen over. The silence from the absence of the moving water,
the chirping birds, and the wind in the leaves of the trees can be absolutely
deafening. But there were signs.
 |
| The Earth rises like a ghost ship from the depths of the ocean. |
It occurred to me as I traveled about today that the entire
landscape looked like a gigantic ship that had sunk to the bottom of the sea
and had somehow slowly risen again. Like
a ghost ship, the Earth was slowly thrusting itself above the waves once again. Rails and decks were becoming visible. Seaweed and dead matter was draped everywhere. Cabins and masts were in need of repair. Somewhere in the fog, a bell was ringing.
It may not seem like spring to the rest of the world, but
this is Maine
and the captain runs a different kind of ship here.
