Many Happy Solar Returns

March 9, 2011
Meadowbrook Road

 Today was my birthday ! It’s the day I consider the start of a New Year.
Where I grew up, in southeastern Pennsylvania,
the daffodils would be in full bloom on my special day.
There was greenness,
and a warm wind blowing.

Where I live now – er, it’s snowing.
On top of the other snow.

My birth-day is my signal,
even as the flakes drift down,
to be alert for the first signs of spring.
When I awoke this morning, I realized that the previous post
was my One Hundredth Blog!
So here is Blog Number One Hundred and One.
The theme for today: So Happy I’m Here.

Despite my sighs for the flowers of long-ago,
There is so much to be thankful for, here and now !

As I celebrate my personal New Year,

and watch,
and listen – the red-wings return.

I see and hear a red-wing.
It sings almost steadily on its perch there,
sitting all alone, as if to attract companions
(and I see two more, also solitary,
on different tree-tops within a quarter of a mile),
calling the river to life
and tempting ice to melt and trickle
like its own sprayey notes.
Another flies over on high, with a tchuck
and at length a clear whistle.

The birds anticipate the spring;
they come to melt the ice with their songs.
HDT Journal, March 11, 1859