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Another big moon comes

and goes as

the season of life

and death that is

spring unfolds

somewhere, maybe

here,  maybe

tomorrow today

as the cat lays in

the grass planted

last fall inside

the kitchen window

and waits.

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And I wait impatiently for the horses to begin shedding their shaggy coats just so I can have reason to spend more time with them as they bustle about on dry dirt and vie for the attention of my curry comb and close breath.

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A mourning dove shows up early, lured by warmer air only to find no more than small patches of open ground, not ideal for a ground feeder, and the seeds I throw out daily are of no interest.

Down at one of the few open places where the Rio Grande runs clear and black like licorice beneath her otherwise still white ribbon, a pair of Mallards swims from one end of the open place to another and fly off as the dog and I cross river, me on snow shoes, he on broad feet with long fur between his pads that have only rarely touched bare earth in so many months.

Spring approaches the high country like a chrysalis revealing.

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After weeks of crunching more numbers that I have since… ever… and straining my eyes where by my reading glasses no longer seem strong enough, I’m done playing architect, done with our house plans. We await the opening of white pasture and the cutting into ground, and in how long, too long, not soon enough, we will be in there living, breathing, walking around,, parking muddy boots by the door, sitting at the kitchen table with burning candles and full plates, watering house plants, baking bread, making love, kicking back in my claw foot tub and writing while the sun comes up in my nook.

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So much for the simplicity of a little log cabin.  These drawings, ten pages from the bottom of the concrete footer to the top of my writing nook, seem so complex.  Does it help or hinder to have plans drawn up by those who have built, not just those who have planned it on paper?  I do not know, but I’m ready to put down my pencil and pick up my draw knife.  I’m ready to build, to break ground and pour cement and peel and stack logs and with tired muscles and sore hands sit back at the Little Cabin and watch the new one come to life.

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