Just when I least expected it a Robin announced to me that spring had arrived ~ then the words of my friend Susan Lenfestey reminded me of the magic and hope of spring .
I began to smell the roses , the sweet uncut grass and my heart felt lighter .... perhaps yours will too in these troubled times.
Allen L Roland
It is a Far, Far Better Spring...
by Susan Lenfestey
Published on Sunday, May 1, 2005 by the Minneapolis Star Tribune / Minnesota
Despite a late sucker-punch of cold weather, there was never an April in Minnesota so dazzling as this year's, or so needed.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times ...
We blinked our way into a warm early April, nervously checking the glare of the skies, like voles scurrying beneath this year's unusual southern plunge of foraging Great Grey owls. We squinted against the bright sun glinting off winter's debris, and then got to like it, shrugging off the bigger implications.
... it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness ...
One warm day burst into another, like soap bubbles colliding in air. Around the lakes, in parks and playgrounds, children popped up like bright flowers, learned to glide on roller skates, to hit a ball or to trust a parent's steady hand on a wobbly bike. It was easy to ignore everything else.
... it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity ...
The ice on the lakes was quickly transformed, like a fairy-tale cloak, going from snowy ermine to deep blue velvet and then vanishing in the night. Buds bulged, seized their courage and popped early, green curls on top, tendrils hanging below, like eager punked-out prom queens.
... it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness ...
Night crawlers snoozing in farmers' fields and in city gardens rustled awake in the loam, the early warmth drawing them toward an uncertain world above -- a night of entwined earthy bliss, or a squirming end in a robin's beak?
... it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair ...
On the ground above, lovers bared pudgy winter flesh and smooched in outdoor cafes, their own futures no more certain than the worms'.
... we had everything before us, we had nothing before us ...
Old men from old countries, dressed in traditional shirts, strolled arm in arm, deep in talk and affection; two women in saris fluttered by on a tandem bike, no earthbound butterfly matching their splendor.
... we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way ...
Distracted by the glories of our preternatural spring, we could almost tune out everything else -- politicians and pontiffs, their smoke screens and smoke signals quaintly or cynically suited to their views on women and the fecund pleasures of this earth.
... the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only....
Dickens' famous opening to "A Tale of Two Cities" leads into a story of mistaken identity, romance and honor. But it's also a story of two cultures, one desperately poor and one bloated with privilege. And for those who don't read, this chasm between the two leads to the French Revolution, a bloody overthrow of the ruling class.
But on May Day we roll in sweet uncut grass and think only in superlatives about this most spectacular spring.
Susan Lenfestey is a Minneapolis writer
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