Dispatches and Arrivals

Goodbye, sleet, freezing rain events,
icy roads, ice fog and traffic accidents.
You will not be missed. Nor will those
ferocious winds, gustily reaching
out of the far northern regions of
our Globe. The incessant snowfalls
blanketing urban areas, isolating rural
ones, causing electrical black-outs,
long commutes, short daylight hours,
chilblains, colds, flu, soon to be
relegated to the past of winter's
unavoidable seasonal miseries.

Welcome, and so good to see
all those arrowhead collections of
geese creasing the sky with their
migrating lines homeward bound.
The first eagerly-brave robins, the
mourning doves, red-winged blackbirds,
goldfinches, arrive with nature's
clockwork seasonal reversals,
delighting her creatures, all. The
groundhogs making their first foray
into a snowless landscape, homeowners
raking winter-sodden, compressed lawns.

Children ambulating home from
school, jackets shed and unheedingly
dragged through detritus-packed streets.
Gone the hockey nets and snow sleds,
skates and skis and snowshoes hung 'till
snow returns. Out with the soccer balls
the basketball hoops, and skipping ropes,
tricycles, scooters and bicycles.

Conifers look greener, deciduous
on the cusp of budding as their sap
leaves roots to reach upper stories. As
housewives begin spring cleaning
rains wash away the dust and dirt
winter has left behind, spiriting spring
bulbs to awaken, bugs and butterflies
to activate their wakening presence.
We are suffused with expectations...