But Soft What Spring Through Lovely April Breaks

Arise sweet spring for signs of you have sprung

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned I get to enjoy the sight of Venus in the late-winter, early spring mornings on my walk to the train station for work. It the very first sign of spring for me, but there are others.

The landscapers for The Commons around my job arrived last week. Gone are the winter evergreens, and the first shoots of the annual tulips are breaking through the ground. In another week or so the area will be awash in the reds, oranges, and yellows of tulips in the garden beds. With the addition of daffodils and lillies, the white blossoms of the dogwoods and always the pinks of the cherry blossoms the next few weeks will be awash springs bright colors. I will love it as I always do, but surprisingly, or not, for all the visual beauty that is the coming spring, it is not my favorite part.

My favorite part is aural.

The blocks I walk are tree-lined and have begun to bud in their own markers of spring, but it’s their occupants that hold sway for me. I step out my building, cross the street and there it is, a sweet trilling; the first calls of the day. Birdsong. For the next couple of week, my walk to the train station will time with the waking of the local flocks of pigeons and quarrels of sparrows. And as the mornings become brighter, if I’m lucky,I am also treated to flashes of robin and cardinal reds or the less frequently seen blue of a jay.

And yes, even the occasional caws of murdering crows and the conspiracy of ravens have greeted my mornings.

Oh, I am in no way, shape or form, an ornithologist. It is the decades of living in different NYC neighborhoods, and my penchant to look up, that have made me observant of more than just the people and pets that share the sidewalks with me.

The chirping of birds in my mornings is also a harbinger of the coming winter when their waking and my walking will again align, but we shan’t speak of such ill things right now. No. No. No.

This is the time for the most vernal of thoughts and I am here for it.


Let’s see how others are slicing it out this first Tuesday of April…

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Slice of Life Tuesdays
Writing Challenge

Two Writing Teachers

+ Energy –

It’s a Monday and it feels as though my energy reserves are all over the place today.

WHAT FUELED ME:

  • COFFEE and drinking it out an oversized mug shaped like a skull
  • Silliness with my best friend this morning
  • Able to get a series of work related items that were on the back burner, completed by noon
  • Muse giving me inspiration for a story
  • Knowing the official start of spring is just mere days away

WHAT DRAINED ME:

  • Realizing the day was passing quickly and I had yet to post
  • A couple of work related calls that were just *aarrghh-ravating*
  • Received incorrect package that took over an hour with customer service to resolve
  • Ol’ Man Winter reminding who’s still in charge with another massive drop in temps today
  • Knowing the feel of spring itself is still a couple of weeks away

WHAT I LEARNED:

I need to slow down take a moment and at least stand at the window to notice the day, I’m clearly down with winter’s chill and I am looking very forward to spring.

Slice of Life Writing Challenge
Two Writing Teachers

Lion / Lamb

claude-monet-the-magpie-1869

I place my palm against the frosted pane
Sighing as winds blow snow drifts all around
Winter has cast its shadow long and wide

A summer gal, this cold has been my bane
Oh this winter has indeed been a hound
Whose howls I’ve never learned to take in stride

I look for signs of life along the lane
Hardly a sign of beast or fowl is found
From winter’s bite, is something we all hide

It seems so long since blossoms dressed my mane
And grass not snow was blanketing the ground
I long to see one budding thing outside

So tired of this chill, last patience tried
I smile at last for signs of spring are spied

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dVerse ~ Poets Pub |Form for All: Trireme Sonnet