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So it’s spring.  Yes, here too.  In spite of the single digit mornings and a pasture of unbroken white.

I remember what the season should bring, could bring.  Rich soil turned up in garden beds, fresh linens from the line on our bed.  Sweet sap running in the trees. Foals romping outside my window.  I don’t have that here and now.  None of it.  Only memories. So strong I can smell the earth and the sweet sap and the new born baby’s breath.

It’s different here. Still spring, the emerging of warm earth from her frozen slumber, but here and now with a new set of definitions.  Like the sighting of the rufous sided towhee scratching at the seeds I toss out beneath our picnic table, and awaiting the song of the frogs.  Thinning snow that turns to slush in the afternoons and light so intense on the spring glazed surface even cloudy days seem blinding.

We learn to adjust.  Human beings are remarkably adaptable, no matter how stubborn we may seem. No place is perfect.  Thing about this place, with all the trials and tribulations to get here and stay here:  it’s ours. That means something to me.  More so with each passing year, growing connection, memories embedded in the soil.  A glance around and I can point to what fence we built, cabin remodeled, road or trail constructed, which mountain I climbed with which dog in what sort of weather.  A board on the old bedroom door frame records Forrest’s growth in faded pencil marks, and generations of horses – mother, daughter, grandmother – await me at feeding time.

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Out on a snowshoe alone with the dog.  Gratitude.  It’s easy to find it here.   Ten things a day, a friend and I prompt each other when we find ourselves forgetting.  Yes, I do forget. The space, the light, the beauty, thin air, a mountain that looks as fancy as a wedding cake, solitude, silence but for spring winds and the opening river and birds. Yes, spring brings such song in the early mornings before the wind picks up and late in the afternoon as the shadows are tossed long and indigo upon sugary snow.

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Living. Dying. This season. Every season.

I remember the dread that came with the risk of the open road bringing conflict and chaos along with cars.  Now I await the open road as the open pasture when we can begin building our place on our land that we have fought for and won.

Bob takes the Cat down there in the afternoon slush and cuts through the open white. The first step towards breaking ground.  Frost just below surface.  We are early still.

And I remember the fear that hung heavy  in the spring storms back then with each birth.  I would rather not remember.  I turn my attention to the mob of chicks scampering about in the giant dog crate between the planters of newly spread lettuce seed and the grass for the cats and dog.  Their happy chirps blending with the melody from the various birds feeding at the picnic table right outside the window.

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And now I know

the loss of none

As if I could remember

a babe crying to be nursed

And the sound of children’s laughter

The gentle nicker of the mare to foal

The song of two blue birds

on the top of a spruce tree still green

Where they first arrive here

every year.