A Tiger and a Unicorn

Just think, only a month ago we were digging out from a foot of snow. Although the calendar said March, the reality outside was deepest winter. And that was our second storm in little more than two weeks. A lot of people said the second one was worse. In my little pocket of the world, we seemed to get the same amount of snow both times, although there was more drifting with the first storm; a car I could see from my living room had snow to the top of its wheel wells and wasn't moved for a week. Driving across the parking lot was akin to sledding on a glacier.

The second snow, though formidable enough to halt travel statewide, ended up melting away like a mere dream of winter in only a few days of sun; it just couldn't hang on like the first one. A week later, it was hard to believe it had even happened, though memories of digging a path for my car with a dustpan as a frosty afternoon turned to purple twilight and my nose turned pink assured me that, yes, I had indeed been there. One week more, a mild, sunny day, and I was driving around with the radio on and the window rolled down, and the world seemed a different place, if only for an afternoon.

After lingering in the borderland of winter's-over-but-it's-not-quite-spring, we had another cold night on Saturday--but the next day, Easter, I saw my first blossoming trees of the season, and a day later there were even more. With the heavy rains of the last few days, the border of the sidewalk next to our building has sprouted some ground cover that almost looks like small shrubs, and the grass, which had been brown and lank except for some green tufts, is suddenly thick and lush, a riot of vegetation.

If March came in like a lion (and it did), April has been tigerish in its own way. We've gone from frozen waste to uproarious jungle, with pollen flying, birds darting, and lightning flashing. If this spring were music, it would be Stravinsky's strident Rite of Spring, not Vivaldi's sweet and chirrupy Four Seasons. The human world may flounder and fumble, but the natural world streams on.

I saw a political headline today: "2015 is all about 2016." I guess I should care, but I'm more excited at the moment by the weeping cherries, crab apples, and redbuds and the prospect of putting my winter things away. Show me a politician as reliable as the return of spring, and I'll show you a green and gold tiger romping in the tall grass with a unicorn. I'm not sure that the first sight isn't much rarer than the second one.