Posted by kabouter on March 20, 1999 at 10:33:15:

The earth doesn't heed us. It goes about its business tolerating our busy difficulties. It shields us guards us
turns benevolently so that we have night and day. It cherishes us, holds us, carries us carefully around the sun
and its motion is so gentle that not a grain of sand is truly disturbed in this majestic journey.

We love our mother earth but we do not protect her with our love. We punish her for her goodness. Maybe we
are still angry with her for that first day of our rude arrival....and right until the last when she offers us a soft bed
we fight against her embrace. We are such troublesome children.

Night has been in triumph over the day the past six months. Day like whipped puppy crawled into a corner and
whimpered there shivering with cold and damp. Night has been fierce in victory. Bitter winds have been allowed
to blow across the earth shrivelling nature's vigour. Long cold hard winds that shake the roof, growl in the
branches of the trees, and hurl chimneys to the ground. We have been held in the savage grip of night for too
long now. Our flesh has grown pale and pinched hidden stifled under swaddling cloths of heavy fabric. The
grey shade that is all-consuming stole the light from our eyes.

Now we rejoice, because the silver light smiles again along the edge of the earth. Day in sweetness accepts
again the retreat of night. They hold each other withour rancour these two in a steady equinoctal dance. Night
concedes, it did its worst but mankind survived. Day has its own challenges however.

The young sun has broken through the clouds and with a kiss of warmth and tender light has touched the
fragile-strong branches of the trees bleak from winter. Forces move within the wood. Emotion stirs, treeflesh
quickens with new lust and begins to swell with tumescent energy. Young green glory is born thrusting out of
those barren stumps.

Birds, the marshalls of the air, feel it next. Their song quickens. The promise of plenty, of peace, of light on the
earth rejoices in tiny breasts. Nature greets the new day exhuberantly. The squirrel in the roots of the tree
salutes its home. Whiskers twitch into life. A belly begins to realise that it is acorn-hungry and small limbs stir.
Small feet practice a new season of scurry as they slip out of sleep.

The child presses his nose against the window. Something has changed outside and he doesn't know what it
is. He feels it inside however and like the bird he sings a tune of celebration. He shakes off his winter like the
tree, shedding woollen wraps that enclosed his sweet energy under dull and heavy layers. He stretches out a
bare foot and his toes reach out into the air exploring a new season of joy. His toes stretch and curl out of their
slippers and dance in the air with little rapid steps he tapdances into spring, lying on his back, arms wrapped
round his body hugging himself into summer.

The shapeless crowds pause in the street. Their sluggish awkward motion ceases in an instant. A new force
begins to move them, a restless rythym. The evidence of spring pushes their heavy feet into a toelift of joy. The
sliding tide of people softens its heavy motion into a dance. The mass of people begins to flow in a spring tide,
half ecstacy - all hope. Dull angry faces lift to the light and meeting, upraised, smiles like new buds break over
those tired grey masks. Eyes borrow the shine of the sun. Light starts to live there again and shares its joy as
eyes meet and pass light from one to another. Hands shed gloves and stretch cautiously but surely outwards
from the body. Sometimes they meet and linger for a while in a clasp that denies loneliness.

Fellowship is possible again. Mouths held taut and winter-closed relax and open pulling the heady air into
yawning bodies. Speech becomes a joy once more. Air leaves the body in sweet song and curls up above the
head like woodsmoke. Prayers are blessings of the spring. The smoke of sound rises and curls and meets and
embrac es. Incense is everywhere. Fragrance has dominion. It is as if the atmosphere of the earth reaches out
of sleep and stretches up into the stratosphere shaking off the woollen clouds from the face of the earth rising
at last from the sleep of winter.

A new time is born. I am ready for it. It is always a time of love and I am ready for it.