I throw open the French doors and stand, listening to the dripping eaves. The crusted puddle of snow on the garage roof doesn’t calm my stubborn heart that, despite the sage warning of the ground hog, feels the ebb of spring. I can smell, I can feel, I can hear the life returning to the earth.
As the days lengthen and the temperature stays above freezing for tonight, I wander out on the deck and pull a blanket from the basket, overjoyed in its mildew-free, dry embrace. I stand beneath an open sky, dipper filled with gibbous moon. At least that’s the phrase that comes to mind as I look at the plump half moon. The snow and the ice melt on beneath cold moonlight. They sigh off shaded ledges. Branches creak and pop like the ankles of an old man rising in the night to pad softly to the toilet as his wife sighs and rolls, spine groaning.
Indoors, the Don Quizote clock ticks a metronome. The furnace pipes click and thock and clank. Tires whine by before stillness returns.
Feb. 4, 2009
Ruminations 