March Interlude: Between the Seasons

March 28, 2025

March Interlude: Between the Seasons

If we accept the sight of wildflowers as a sure sign of the arrival of Spring, then we must admit that Persephone is yet to leave her mark on the mountains. Unlike the pages of a calendar where a simple notation makes it seem so well-defined, exact, the change in seasons higher in the mountains is imperfect, untidy. The Icehouse creek, charged with snowmelt draining from the upper backsides of peaks and ridges, cascades over boulder ledges, overwhelms long-fallen trees, rushing down the canyon bottom. Smaller rivulets feed in, long strands rushing down steep slopes, or emerge straight out of the earth from some unseen underground source, flowing across the trail, and plunging over a cliff in a dash of spray. Clouds take their time to clear from the in the chill morning air; for an hour or two, their place is taken by the song of birds reveling in the warmth and sun. Chirps and whistles, jeers and mellow coos fill the air, showering the earth with their evident joy. Soon enough, though, the clouds rush back in, the higher peaks and slope tops with their covering of white disappear in a grey mist.

Yet, if we look closely we might notice that, here and there, the pines are bearing a scattering of "blooms," that the manzanita are "almost there," and that the low-growing green just recently sprouting beside the trail where water seeps and flows will, given another week or two (or three?), support the hanging red and yellow of fragile columbine flowers, at the ends of slender stems.

"'Aren't you afraid of my darkness, my dear?' Hades asked with mischief in his eyes. 'No,' Persephone replied, 'you haven't seen mine yet."

It may be a bit chill this weekend, but that does not mean you can't get out and search for signs of spring wherever you find yourself. Or, conversely i suppose, signs that old man winter is not quite ready to turn things over to her just yet.