The Thaw

It is April 9 and the temperature has yet to reach sixty. The sun is strong as I head out through the first snow drops in the garden. I shield my eyes against the glare of the snow. It may be spring elsewhere, but here in Snowy Hollow it is still winter.
The snow has turned from a solid block of ice into big pellets of corn snow that I fall through up to my knees. It feels good against the warmth of the day. I stop at a spring to look for signs of salamanders and wood frogs, but it is still too early. The waters from this spring that burble down a small waterfall into a brook are the headwaters of a watershed that runs into the Connecticut River and finally out into the Atlantic. I wonder if I drop a leaf into the brook, will it make it all the way the ocean?
I follow the brook down to the pond. It, too, is still frozen. I remember the eighty degree spring day that I sat beside the pond and watched the ice melt. Frogs would jump from the water onto the ice and slowly freeze as they tried to make their way across. It was a lesson in cold blooded biology unravelling before my eyes.
I continue along the brook as it turns into a series of beaver swamps. I am looking for skunk cabbage, but there is none yet. The only sign of the oncoming season is a few marsh marigold leaves. This is a land in transition. What was once a brook is becoming a pond as the beaver expands the wetlands in these woods.
I look out across a large marsh. A blue heron is perched on its nest in the middle of an icy expanse. Two pairs of mergansers hang in the open water beside the icy edge and a few geese strut across the ice towards them, honking in defense of their territory. The spring battles are about to begin.
I follow the flowing water to the river and walk the gorge road. The ice is thick and it makes the going difficult. The waters of the river are raging. They carry the sediment of these hills to the ocean. They are so high that the waterfall at the bend has disappeared into wild rapids. I imagine myself swirling in the power of the water and lose myself to the deafening roar. This is the sound of winter's last stand! I open my arms to the sky and raise my voice to the river. This is Spring!