SPRING IN THE BLOOD

Here at the end of an overcast day of digging, raking, garden-readying, cleaning after the wind stampede, gathering windfall branches for this Winter's years kindling, amplifying the grunge by handweeding, gathering spinach for dinner, restacking a big pile of wind-and-monkey-toppled shiitake and hiratake logs (a few biggening mushrooms as reward, to go with the spinach), at last comes the rain that has pent up there in the gray all day-- the first real Spring rain of the year, a gentle falling in drops you can barely hear (the bamboos beneath stand quiet as the dusk), all bringing to the Big Soul the same mood that calls blossoms up from the ground, makes already daffodils bounce with brightness in their green corner, sets the plum and cherry branches with tiny opals and rubies, soon to open in glories beyond price, making even spring-busy humans pause in their motions and gaze into the quiet distance in search of what must be there, now and then taking a deep breath of it all, with a look in the eyes that rises from ancient human-Spring relations, an inborn love of calm. Ah, the ancient privilege it is, to savor these moments and the food they are, to the Winter-hungered heart...