Then comes the greening into the glade that moments ago, adorned in white, presented its ungarnished crown of frost to a breathless world awaiting release and longing for sun-ripened rest. The wordless woods in a sanctified hush, just a heartbeat before were robed all about with unblemished vestures, their ominous forms draped in loose-fitting garments, guileless raiment divinely appointed, hung upon venerable frames.
Now infant buds in the throes of their birth burst forth with the unbridled joy of new life. And a murmur has stirred over meadow and field, a whispering breeze, the precursor of wind, dispensing the rumor there's motion afoot in still, wooded shadows and slumbering soil.
The muted unwindings of feather-fine roots, the cracking of bulbs with the launching of shoots; the rhythmic awakening of slow-growing grasses unearthing themselves from beneath sheets of leaves, free from their snow-coated dreaming all feeble voices that grow in their strength as sunlight condenses like dew.
Not far behind, the birds. They light like the snap of a finger on limbs, frail, brittle twigs barely holding their weight. Then with a ruffle and flutter of wings, the dry, parched fanning of feathers is heard, and skyward they soar in their thirsting for flight.
Responding to some inner voice they ascend, careening above sloping upland and pasture, along gurgling streams that are guarding their words, treading lightly of foot, slowly picking their way with deliberate caution past scowling censors of ice. Beyond on the split-rail, surveying each kingdom, unbound by man's borders, they glow in the sun, their homespun jackets of seasonal brilliance blooming like flowers in the temperate air.
Then from their tremulous throats a trill, a mellifluous run of harmonious notes that float up and down a melodic scale, and over the fields of men. An avian hymn of unfettered praise to earth, to life, to the freedom to fly.
The songster settles upon the branch. With flitting tail and blinking eye he floods his breast with the fragrant air, composing his lyric in his mind, reviewing his chosen key. His bosom swells with minstrel mirth as he lifts his canticle to the clouds, a crucible of heartening wine, and offers up with revelry his recitational aria.
With a carillon's quaint clarity, his voice is thus released, and over and over his glad refrain in dulcet tones again and again comes tumbling from his heart. The spirited tempo with tinkling charm, regaling in concert each listening ear, is tintinnabulum piping its tribute, bold coloratura tribute, heralding all processions of the troubadour of time. How his song revives the heart and jostles the soul from its anesthetic winter, stirring to life the delirious spirit's deep-seated passion to fly.
Now, with the droning of indistinct voices humming a low volume tone to the day while young, tender buds with their freshness of vision, are reaching in earnest for points far away life in its chorus is rhythmically pulsing with the unfailing song of the spheres.
The soft breast of Earth is now rising and falling, its warm, gentle breath little more than a sigh, and there on the wings of Spring's sweetest music, blossoms are filling the sky.
Wayne Kelley of East Dorset, Vt., is a regular contributor of seasonal essays and poetry.
Songbird