Yard Work - April 21 2021

 

Yard Work

April 21 2021

A cold spring rain

is washing away

the moth-eaten remnants of snow.

But it's still too cold

for the daffodils and crocuses

and first shoots of green.

For the earthy smell

of living soil

after a cleansing summer rain.

Spring is in its dormancy

the world sits inert.

The air

has an acrid edge of wood-smoke

and it's neither warm nor cold.

The sky is a middling grey

the land oppressively bleak.

So we wait

in our usual stoical fashion,

making do

puttering about

organizing chores.

We are always waiting, it seems.

For the next season

the next thing

the next big event.

With anticipation

as well as dread.

The future stretches out ahead

like a moving target

and we can only guess how it unfolds.

Who knows

why we use the definite article

as if destiny is set,

because there are infinite hypothetical futures

and ours is merely one.

So with the future is in flux

we rely on nature

to order our lives,

the recurring cycle of seasons

the waxing and waning of light;

the circling of earth

and the tilt of its axis

and the march of the moon and the stars.

The reassuring certainty

that the sun will rise

the calendar change

the seasons succeed as before.

That in the fullness of time

spring will come

and summer follow

and autumn in due course.

That this rain will stop

the snow will melt

the first bloom appear.

That I’ll clear the branches lost

from all those winter storms,

clean up after the dogs

then rake the greening lawn.

I actually already saw the first green shoot poking up from the snow. And before the late spring blizzard that arrived unexpectedly, I'd already cleared the fallen branches and accumulated dog poo.

We think big, but life is small: the day-to-day, the usual succession of chores, the serendipity of weather. There may be monotony, but here is also a comforting reassurance in the predictable cycling of the seasons. The future is unknowable. But some things you can count on. (Although maybe not. Climate change threatens to change everything!)

Btw, there is the name of that smell after a fresh rain on dry land: petrichor. It probably comes from organic matter that has accumulated on rocks and soil and paved surfaces, and then becomes volatile when dissolved in water.