Sunday Meditation

I am sitting on the front porch basking in the warm sunshine - it is the first day in more than a week that we have had sun. The temperature is hovering around freezing in the back of the house, but out here it has to warmer than that. I am comfortable wearing only a fleece sweater and jeans, which are no longer presentable and which are also splotched with plenty of evidence that I have been removing white and tan paints from an old dresser. I am sipping from a delicious cup of hot, milky, English tea. Above its steamy fragrance I also detect the faintest smells of spring: dirt and trees newly released from icy bondage.
Out near the trees there are several kinds of birds chirping and going about their birdy business.
Behind me I hear that wonderful harbinger of spring: the drip, drip of snow melting in the eavestroughing. I turn around to watch the drips and discover this fabulous icicle!

Wednesday Revelation

Another gorgeous day, another excuse for a cup of tea on the porch; I turn to say hello to my icicle and discover it gone! It has been so warm the past two days, all the icicles have fallen off the roof. Dave calls from the front garden 'have you seen this over here?' Some sort of bulbs have already begun to push their little yellow noses up through the newly warm, wet dirt. What a marvelous thing is spring!