Apr 20 2010
Only Spring
Yesterday I went back to that little pond next to the Rail Trail, looking for spring peepers. With temps in the forties, a mostly cloudy sky overhead and a slight breeze, the weather was more in keeping with early spring. In other words, it felt more like a peeper kind of day than it did the last time I had walked the trail. So I was in the mood to listen to those harbingers of the season.
The little pond is a wetland, really. It only fills with water in the springtime or after a heavy rain. It’s more than a vernal pool, though, which is also a good place to look for breeding frogs this time of year. I reached the wetland after walking no more than twenty minutes. Man on a mission, I passed up several patches of wildflowers along the way. I longed to hear spring’s chorus above all else.
Upon reaching the wetland, I heard a solitary frog singing loudly and persistently. I crouched down in the brush near water’s edge, hoping to hear more. My dog Matika wandered off to sniff. Although I had come out to stretch my legs, I remained still a long while, giving the wary frogs a chance to get used to me. Sure enough, a second peeper started up, then a couple more joined in, then a few more until a full chorus rang out. I just crouched there smiling.
The singing didn’t last. It never does in the middle of the day. But I heard enough peeping to fill with vernal joy – the kind of elemental happiness that one can only feel after a hard winter. No, it wasn’t a particularly long, cold or snowy winter, but it was a hard one all the same. It usually is for people like me, who need constant exposure to nature’s endless regeneration in order to keep faith with the world.
Afterward I didn’t so much hike as merely drift down the trail. I watched the sun play peekaboo from the clouds, and listened to robins chirping from the tops of poplars already starting to leaf out. I admired the vibrant Kelly green of nearby pastures, and smelled the fresh manure spread across them. I didn’t mind it. Here in Vermont, manure is as much a part of spring as the peepers. And somehow it all fits together nicely, as if part of some grand design. But it’s only spring, I kept telling myself. Don’t make any more of the season than it is. Only spring.
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