Winter becoming spring

Last Week
35 degrees. Rain threatened. Winds gusted. Cold nipped our noses as we arrived at the ballfields at Volunteer Park.

High school teams of men and women practiced baseball, lacrosse, soccer, and band music. Sirens wailed along nearby city streets. We walked behind the fields and fences into the woods and wilds. The urban sights and sounds became muted memories.

No songbirds sang of spring today. Strong breezes whipped the tops of birches and alders, whispering secrets to the cedars and firs. I took shortcuts and longcuts among the ponds and backwaters. Crunching through frosted grass, we found a pond half frozen with the thinnest film of ice. What do you do when you stand next to lake ice? You step on it! I tapped the surface with my toe and it shattered into a liquid mirror.

At the top of an alder, catkins fluttered on branches like dancers looking for partners. Three people passed us as we stood. Two were joggers, whose eyes stared straight ahead, passing without a smile or word. Then a woman strolled along. She stopped to ask what we were looking at. The tops of the alders, we said, and she said she didn’t know the trees here, but she was glad that we were looking up as it reminded her to look up too. She continued on her way, still looking up at the dances high above us.

Leafless maples waltzed with clouds. The music of the wind sighed to us earth-dwellers down below. A drizzle began. We shivered a little, wrapped our coats tighter, and walked on.

Looking out over the many ballfields surrounding these woods, hundreds of people played, busy with sport and competition and teamwork. The forest stood apart, an island of wet and wild surrounded by playgrounds and pavement and the ever-present murmurs of the city in the distance. The marshes and woods danced, mostly alone. Winter’s grip held tight.

A week later...

…today is just that kind of day

a day so etched in sunlight
that you take a hammer to the snowglobe

releasing the inhabitants
so they can walk out,
holding hands and squinting

into this larger dome of blue and white

                 - Billy Collins 

It's 55 degrees. It’s high noon, the sun high and bright and joyous. The warmth made us feel high too, squinting into this sky-globe of blue and white, not really needing a coat as we walked along, giddy with the miracle of spring’s hope.

Where ponds last week sported skins of ice, today their liquid surface reflected bold rays of sunlight, framed by grasses springing from the earth. Male mallards and goldeneyes paddled and maneuvered to be close to the females, exploding into flight at times. Chickadees, robins, sparrows, thrushes and finches sang to loved ones nearby, their songs filling the air with sweetness. Indian plum dangled white flowers as their leaves burst forth, a brilliant splash of bright-green beauty.

We wandered among the ponds and woods, aimless and spirited, like pixies dusted with the magic of life, returning from the darkness of the past few months, nay, even from last week. We danced carefully along side trails thick with mud, soft and squishy underfoot. The main trail is firm and dry, leading us through the forest of birches and alders. Rivulets sparkled as they flowed alongside the trail.

As we entered the hall of maples, moss clung to their trunks, glistening and gleaming golden green. Sap rises through the trunks, unseen except for the swelling of buds at the tips of the branches. Bird songs continue, here a nuthatch, there a towhee, and somewhere a hairy drilling for food.

The playfields are empty, students inside their classrooms, probably looking out the windows, thoughts miles from their studies, seeing the hope of spring spreading throughout the campus, throughout this park, throughout the town, throughout all of our hearts and dreams.

Spring is coming!
 

jack

Directions: From 12th and Commercial in Anacortes, go west on 12th Street to G Avenue. Turn left and go two blocks to the parking area. The trails start to the south, behind the fences of the ball fields.

By Bus: Take Skagit Route 410 from March's Point or downtown Anacortes west to 12th Street and G Avenue.

By Bike: the roadways in the downtown Anacortes area are mostly gently sloped. Traffic on 12th can be heavy at times; parallel roads are a good alternative.

Mobility: the trails in the park are paved near the ballfields, and graveled in the woods, with some elevation gain and side slope toward the south end of the park.