Longing for Spring

We have had a bitter cold winter in the Midwest along with snow, ice, and sleet. It is not over yet, but many of us are beginning to yearn for spring. Gardeners are looking at seed catalogs with great longing. Birds that have flown south are plotting their return. People who have been homebound for so long are getting anxious to be outside in warmer air. Farmers are watching the moisture and  temperatures, anxious to plant their crops.

Every year spring transforms our dark, dead world into a miracle of rebirth. When the first crocus appears among decaying leaves, we cannot help but smile. These tiny purple and pink flowers are heralds that winter is over. Sometimes their brave petals even appear in the midst of leftover snow.

It's no wonder that spring is such a favorite season. The Great Artist paints his landscape with a kaleidoscope of colors amid hills of verdant green. Artists and poets try to capture the beauty of spring. Wordsworth expressed his rapture in his poem about daffodils:

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

T. S. Eliot is a bit more somber yet lovely:

April is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.'

Rejoice! Spring is right around the corner.