I can't wait.

On my way home tonight, I fell in love all over again. There's a certain Slant of light, Winter Afternoons, that moves me; it rosegolds everything, clarifies the winter, calls the day down, signals the slow end. The slant of light I loved today happened about three minutes before the rosegold. I grabbed my camera and tried to get it for you. The view from the backyard wasn't optimal because of the trees on the western and southern edges of the yard, so I set out to go down the road to a better vista; we have a wonderful view to the west, heading down the hill away from campus. But then, as I was walking around the side of the house, I saw them.

I mentioned the other day that I had seen my first snowdrops. Today, I saw my first tiny yellow flowers, popped up each by another near one of the trees at the corner of my house. In search of one gold, I stumbled upon another, and it turned me into a naturalist in my own sideyard, listening to my landscape before the going of the light. I fear for these wee flowers, because surely it's not going to stay so warm; surely the spring is not yet underway. And yet, look: they are so determined; all their biological makeup is trying so hard. Around the front of the house, there were patches of yet-to-bloom snowdrops, looking somehow subaqueous, making me feel like a diver, exploring; all of these flowers are right where the morning and afternoon sunlight lands and stays for hours, which must be encouraging them along at least a good month in advance of schedule. Daffodils are spearing up all over town, too, inch by green inch.