Progymnasmata

Maybe it's that the morning light seems more orange than it did weeks ago. Maybe it's the soft melt of 34 degrees (f). Maybe it's that I can smell the mud again. But I see spring approaching.

It's the time of morning melts and nightly freezes.

. . . . .

Most mornings I take a brief walk outside. My wife calls it my daily "survey". Let me tell you a little about my recent surveys. It's March in the North and here is what I love about it: the fluctuation of form. Water. The mid-afternoon warmth melts the ice from last night's freeze, which opens up small, shallow pools of water on the driveway. A transformation from solid to soup that amazes me still because in a few hours, they will be ice again.

This morning I made my survey of those shallow pools that yesterday got my boots wet; but they were solid ice -- transparent, rigid, and silent. I walked across them. They were a bridge from one spot of land to another.

Eight hours ago their character was much different. They were soft, and they were soaking, and their tiny ripples harmonized and varied with the fickle breeze. . . north, west, northwest, west. Like a Mayfly whose life is a day, so these puddles in my driveway were a'frenzy in the sun and air of that day in March, 2010.

And tonight, a cloudless sky is predicted. Deep freeze coming. They will be petrified again, and I will walk across them.

Is this fluctuation any different than my own sleeping and waking? In a little while the sap will be running in the sugar maples. And after that the ice will go out, not to return for many months and these daily capsules of larger cycles, these puddles will be gone.

Let us splash wildly today while the thrilling cold of winter is still in them!