in just-

This whole past week has been sunny and increasingly mild, culminating yesterday, appropriately on a Freedom From Workweek Friday, with sixty degrees of sun. The softness of the velvety air made my skin feel all ripply. I know how the birds feel, yelling their exuberance at the lush promise of the season. Between my roadside mailbox and my driveway, the snowmelt runs down the sides of the country road. As I turned off the road I stopped the car to soak up the sound of the water burbling over the driveway's shale, roiling and bubbling as it ran gushing into the ditch.

I put the car in the barn, dropped the mail on the counter and the dogs and I burst outdoors for a walk . . . something we haven't been able to do for months.  We've been able to step-step, slide-slip, tiptoe and trudge for a long time, but a walk has been impossible or impossibly uncomfortable.  Off we skipped down the driveway, the dogs far ahead of me, thrilling to be out and not quivering with cold, sucking and snorting up all the snow-buried smells that have been opened to their eager noses, reading all the news of the winter that we hope is past.  Up the road, keeping clear of the rivulets (me), and duck-paddlefoot-slapping through them (dogs), we went. I found a sturdy stick just the right length and, in the ancient country tradition of late winter, poked the leftover rotted snow into the roadside runnel and cleared oak leaf obstructions out of the way of the water, watched swirls of mud appear and disperse. It occurred to me that I might be helping the road wash away, but how satisfying to be helping Spring come in!

The upper driveway is still too deep in snow to make a loop of our walk, so upon reaching its mouth we reversed and returned. 

It was hardly an aerobic exercise, this walk . . . too many stops to wash my senses in the gifts of such a day.  
It might not have done my body any good . . . but oh! what it did for my soul!

 in just-

in Just-

spring       when the world is mud-

luscious the little

lame balloonman

whistles       far       and wee

and eddieandbill come

running from marbles and

piracies and it's

spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer

old balloonman whistles

far       and       wee

and bettyandisbel come dancing

 from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's

spring

and

     the

             goat-footed

balloonMan       whistles

far

and

wee

e.e. cummings