In the western sky, the lopsided, less-than-full moon decides to call it a night & slinks downward, slowly through the steel-blue haze.
In the east, a band of pale orange is spreading behind the border of trees, trees still stark and naked from winter's storms, standing patiently now in the emerging light. Over all the ground, a coating of snow still lingers. Its frozen glaze stifling any attempt to penetrate its icy prison.
The world is waiting for the sunrise. Surely this day, Easter Sunday should bring an end to the chilly grip of ice & snow that has held our world captive for so long. Nature, of course pays no attention to calendars or holidays. Since the equinox, the sun has risen a bit earlier & set a bit later. Birds, their internal clocks set to the astrological rhythms have arrived in their northern homes and found little nourishment in the beneath the snow & ice. Now they flutter about the bushes, nibbling on buds & gathering in the bare places on the lawn where the sun has been able to melt the snow.
The eastern sky now glows golden & in a minute the sun, a brilliant egg-shaped orb, rises & the eastern sky is so bright I have to turn my eyes away. The day has begun & though the surface of the earth reveals only winter, below its cover, roots are stirring. And in the mornling light, birds are chirping. Perhaps they recognize the growing power of the sun. Perhaps the robins, with their ears cocked to the ground can detect the stirring of worms heading for the surface. Already, in calm, shallow places, the ice on the lake is beginning to melt.
All the world is waiting for the Springtime & it can't come a moment too soon.