Onrushing spring

Trail Wood #76 Earl Plato

“Onrushing spring” at Trail Wood
“ Beside the stone walls, in the weed tangles, along Hampton Brook, in the woods, in wide meadows under the open sky - everywhere Nellie and I turn on this sun-filled mid-April day, we walk amid signs of onrushing spring.
Song sparrows sing from bush tops. Redwings flash the scarlet of their epaulets when they land. Earthworm castings dot the open spaces, Mole tunnels meander under the meadow grass. Pussy willows, no longer silver, shine with the gold of ripened pollen. Cowbirds spread their wings an posture in mating performances. Quail call from old stone walls. Fish break the sheen of the pond. Near the waterfall the early blooming chick weed unfolds the minute petals of its diminutive white flowers. Along the warmer southern side of the lowlands and walls I find the false hellebore spreading the ribbed apple-green of its leaves.
On such a day as this you can feel spring, you can see spring, you can smell spring, hear spring, taste spring. You respond with your senses to the multiform manifestations of change into which the awakening plunges you/”