“Despite March’s windy reputation, winter isn’t really blown away; it is washed away. It flows down all the hills, goes swirling down the valleys and spills out to sea. Like so many of this earth’s elements, winter itself is soluble in water. —
Hal Borland, “Twelve Moons of the Seasons,” March 1964
* * *
So far, here in central New Hampshire, winter is still largely solid, but day by day it drips, seeps, evaporates, and dissolves in the dawning warmth.
These photos were all taken today.
* * *
We are Winter-weary, and the lengthened daylight is only a taunt, not yet the reality of Spring. … This is the interim, the painful pause between the seasons, no longer Winter, we hope, and not yet really Spring. Give us a few 60-degree days in a row and we will practically burst into leaf or song. We have had enough of that white stuff. Now we want that green stuff; that chlorophyll.. That is the basic reason we welcome April so eagerly. April has a green sound to it.”
— Hal Borland, “Sundial of the Seasons,” March 1958
* * *
* * *
“This is a kind of interregnum, with neither Winter nor Spring in full control; and such transitions usually are difficult, uncertainty their signet. We know that May will come, with lilacs and apple blossoms, but we don’t know what the day after tomorrow will be like. That’s the gist of it. We want to hear Spring peepers and see the green haze spreading through the treetops, and we are weary of waiting. And if we seem to be captiously impatient, that is a hopeful sign. Such peevishness is an early but dependable symptom of Spring Fever.”
— Hal Borland, “Twelve Moons of the Year”
* * *
