From Two Weeks Ago

As I walk through the park this morning, the temperature is rising towards the upper sixties- a bright blue sky welcomes the spring. Yet traces of yesterday's snowfall linger on, hiding under trees and plants and man-made structures. A pile of it in various states of existence (from flakes to ice to water to airborne) sits under me now. This is the battle for spring here in Ohio.

As I stretch out on a bench, tilting my face back to catch the rays of the sun and feel the warming light, I look up and see the trees. While the ground has begun to turn- green life poking its heads stubbornly through the ground, squirrels and insects scurrying- the trees still remain silent. They stretch upward, skeletal, like bony hands dark into the shining sky. Perhaps the trees are the oldest, and the wisest, and they knew winter had not gone yet. Winter's final cry, this stubborn snowstorm of yesterday, was unexpected to the lesser plants, yet the trees knew. This is the battle for spring here in Ohio.