The Whale

Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors,

there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night. (Rainer Maria Rilke)

It is a reckless and early Spring, the first we've had in a long time. It came on us a few weeks ago when a soft green halo appeared among the stark branches of the trees, little more than a smoky haze that simmered and grew into a fog as the days passed and lengthened. And then the explosion of color, first from the crab apple trees, then the lazy, drooping tulips, and the pansies with their stern, lion faces. And when the pressure from their peers was too great, everything else––from the red tentacles of the blooming cottonwoods to the winding tendrils of the willows–– joined in, the voice of their tenacious color rising up in an unruly chorus. Too often these last few years a spring snow with Autumn-like winds have killed the blossoms and swept their petals away before they could even open and perfume the world. This year, though, despite last week's brief snow, color and its sweet bouquet seemed to rise up in rebellion against the cold, stood its ground and held fast, refused to be stifled and has bathed us in the lilac, gardenia magic of its fragrance daily since.

Under a sky where a single enormous, white whale of a cloud swam, its head bowed and pointed into the lowering sun, its tail lost, miles back, amid the bubbling blue of the indigo east, Duncan and I walked through an ocean of color that splashed over us, waves of it dappling our faces and drifting on a cool breeze that stroked the points of the ripening, greened grass, sifting through them, its delicate caress rousing them to dance and bend in bold celebration of their newfound height. Everything seems to turn its face upward, toward the sky, where whales glide effortlessly and serenely past.

And Duncan, the darling of all seasons, has been there with me, a prince among the petals, my loyal companion and witness to all the glory this Spring has to offer.