New Life

On this mild, spring evening I realize that all around me nature takes two forms – the wild and the tame. Everywhere new life is beginning to sprout. Directly behind me are various trees with green tips beginning to mask the dull brown bark of winter. Beneath my feet vivacious green grass struggles to emerge through the remaining dead, dry leaves of fall and winter. At various places in my yard – lining the deck, under the tree directly in front of me, and even at both sides of the swing I am sitting on – pre-planted flowers start to tamely grow where my mother had planted them years ago. Slowly the remnants of winter are being engulfed by the birth of spring.

Across the street to my left the farmer’s field is even different. The shattered remains of last year’s corn harvest have disappeared under the machine ploughed soil where the farmer is preparing to plant a new crop. The trees that line the back of the fields are now beginning to hide the school and surrounding houses. No longer can I unintentionally spy on the neighbors living on the other side of the farmer’s field.

In the wind that caresses my face I smell the freshness of new life. The scent of budding flowers with the pollen that tickles my nose overwhelms my senses. I smell the freshly mowed grass from my over-eager neighbor who is obviously anxious for the weekly ritual that lawn care requires.

My ears are filled with the sounds of spring. The hidden birds chirp merrily in the trees conversing with long lost friends who migrated south for the winter and have now returned for the summer months yet to come. I swear I even hear a lonesome cricket crying out for its companions as the evening sun prepares to dip below the never ending horizon. The barrenness of winter is finally being replaced by the plentitude of spring, and the once resting nature is springing to new life once again.