Take your marks …

Spring is poised, like a runner in his marks, ready to burst forward at the sound of the gun. Snow is pretty much gone except for piles here and there in the shadows and gullies and the north sides of the mountains. Trees are bare. They too are ready to burst forward on green day. The frozen ponds have taken on the grayish look they get when the ice starts to turn slushy. Any day now swans will show up on the pond, but for the moment the woods seem empty like the wildlife along the road are waiting to spring forward too. The spring hatch of porcupines hasn't showed up yet either. There is one sure sign of spring I don't miss. I lived for some time in the town that reports the most snowfall in the country year after year, and, of course, in spring all that snow has to melt. The sure sign of spring there is when several of the town's heavier drinkers show up on crutches, or casts or their arms in slings. What happens is they walk into the bars in late afternoon when all the walking surfaces are covered with melt water and the walking is easy. After several hours in the bar they walk out, only by then it is night, the sky is dark, the temperature has dropped below freezing and all that melt water has turned to a sheet of ice. Unsteady person, slippery surface, no light, do the math. The first bloom of spring there consists of crutches and casts. Green day, swans and porcupines are preferable.