The Last Day

Old Man Winter is hanging on tight. Forty miles west of Lynchburg the scenery is measured.

Forty.

“You’re a man of the Word. Why forty?” I asked a fellow as we boarded an elevator.

Something about forty.

And Old Man Winter is hanging on tight, this last day of his reign.

Spring feels restrained this year. I’m always putting some comparison on the seasons, one of those old BuzzFeed “Which Ninja Turtle Are You?” quizzes, and I know that, but…

It feels earned, every petal, methodical as a clock, inevitable, but exactly on time, in increments.

Tick, tock.

That’s good. Spring would be a shame if we could push it along with our western whims. God knows Pumpkin Spice season would start in July if the retailers had their way.

So I drove along, forty miles west of Lynchburg, and looked at the occasional willow, or muted forsythia, obedient with an astronomical precision.

Maybe the equinox tomorrow will unleash something. If autumn brings a nameless sadness, spring heralds an unquenchable madness, the bright threads of Bach and the crashing timpani of Beethoven.

But all I hear now is a tight Mahler composition, Nature’s symphony No. 1, one bloom, and then another.

Old Man Winter says to wait, and lets one frog out into the pond, then another. Now the toads sing. Now a magnolia reaches for the sun. But all in good time.

To think a tie entitles me to conduct.

I’ll sit and watch.

–Josh