Passing By

In the ten days since I’ve returned from the southland, we’ve passed, moved into the spring I discovered in bloom below. In a single burst, an unbroken string of twenty-degree days, spring came, bloomed and Fernie moved into summer.

Well not quite. This morning with the chill rain, we fell back into the early grip of spring. Not a hard bitter grip. A loose easy, almost joking, grip. Only my front lawn has felt the mower. The back spreads immense in immature dandelion heads. The mountain ash outside my office window moved from tiny green leaves and bunches of bb sized berry clusters to a fully leaved out tree with clusters hidden, left to ripen later.

I need to mow my lawn, but this rain has given me a two-day respite. One to dry and one to mow. I’ll take it.

Pulling out the jeans again after a week of sandals and shots, I listen to the rain on the street and on the neighbor’s metal roof. A few degrees colder and we would be having our last snow of the year. As it is, in the morning, I expect the Sisters to be winter white at elevation with a sticky plastering of spring snow. Avalanches will drop, streaking the snowfields below with new texture.

In a week, this rain forgotten, I’ll mow my lawn for the second time.