the Time Between

Umm.... the weather situation outside is GROSS. It's too wet for snow boots, too cold for rain boots, and too windy for an umbrella. It's slippery and mushy and when cars drive past (as cars are want to do in New York City), frozen slush splashes up on innocent bystanders just like in the cartoons, only this is NOT funny. The most miserable part of all of this is that it's MARCH. The first day of Spring is TOMORROW. The groundhog said that this would NOT HAPPEN. I feel cheated by Mother Nature and overall disgusted with the sky and what it has been dropping on me lately.

And then this morning, I read this poem and even though I'm still angry enough to use all CAPS when writing about this hellish weather, I feel a little calmer, at least, knowing that this is a transition. This is the "time between."

"Here in the Time Between"
by Jack Ridl

Here in the time between snow
and the bud of the rhododendron,
we watch the robins, look into

the gray, and narrow our view
to the patches of wild grasses
coming green. The pile of ashes

in the fireplace, haphazard sticks
on the paths and gardens, leaves
tangled in the ivy and periwinkle

lie in wait against our will. This
drawing near of renewal, of stems
and blossoms, the hesitant return

of the anarchy of mud and seed
says not yet to the blood's crawl.
When the deer along the stream

look back at us, we know again
we have left them. We pull
a blanket over us when we sleep.

As if living in a prayer, we say
amen to the late arrival of red,
the stun of green, the muted yellow

at the end of every twig. We will
lift up our eyes unto the trees hoping
to discover a gnarled nest within

the branches' negative space. And
we will watch for a fox sparrow
rustling in the dead leaves underneath.