Wednesday, April 15, 2015

April 15, 2015 - Make Way For Spring!

Each day the rivers run freer and faster, having lost most or all of their ice.  The currents are strong and dangerous as the melting water heads downward from the mountains to the rivers, lakes, and streams below.  Eventually the rivers will pour their bounty out into the Atlantic.  It almost seems as if the water is smiling as it races by, having been frozen and locked for so long.  It speeds with an urgency not seen in summer and fall.

Spring in Maine is not a gradual occurrence.  We do not get a slow warming trend that step by step leads to a glowing and beautiful spring.  In Maine, spring happens all at once.  It is an immediate occurrence.  Yes, there is a initial stage where the ice recedes a bit, but that cannot be called spring because the land is still barren and terribly cold.  In Maine, we jump from a very long winter that ends one day to a spring that begins the next day.

Some Canada geese enjoying the sun.

The sun is angling much higher in the sky now.  It’s rising in a different location and setting in a different location.  Only a month or so ago, I could see the sun rising early in the morning through a certain spot in the trees, and I photographed it quite often because it was so beautiful to see.  Now that spot has been abandoned, and the sun has moved quite a bit to the left.  It’s warmer outside, too, and that’s very inviting after such a long and cold winter.

The vegetation has not returned yet, although a couple of brave crocuses have popped their pretty little purple heads up.  My eyes drink in the sight of these flowers as if they were a masterpiece hanging in the Louvre.  A tiny crocus, a flower that most people wouldn’t even notice, becomes an exquisite work of art to me.  It looks so foreign in its still-gray and barren landscape, but its presence is like a heralding trumpet shouting, “Make way for spring!  Make way for spring!”

And the Canada geese have returned.  I saw the first famous V-formation flock flying north over my head just a week ago.  Yes, I think it’s safe to say that spring is here.