Dreaming of Michigan Spring

“The pine tree dreams of the palm…” the poet Heinrich Heine says.

Many times, from my work desk, I’d gaze out the nearest window and imagine a job-free life on a tropical beach beneath a palm tree, or in a jungle hut listening to parrots and approaching rain.

Especially during early spring after fresh powdered-sugar snow covered the ground, courtesy of lingering winter.

From my window now, young live oaks are rich in bright green leaves. Highway phlox spreads purple, pink, and white flowers across fields. Azaleas burst out in their annual performance, and songbirds are trilling, nesting, busy with springtime business.

Jokesters insist that Michigan has two seasons—winter and summer—but in truth, springtime has many layers. So why am I drawn to Michigan memories where winter still grips March, and warm spring days seem a season away?

There’s something magical about every tiny hint of the end of winter, when temperatures swing from freezing to chilly rain, or March snowfalls cover yards overnight with mounds of white and melt within days.

What do I miss?

Maple syrup month in March. Trilliums appearing late April to early May. Early robins hopping across yards and beginning their lilting songs. The first grass stems reappearing through melting snow. Mounds of frozen, dirty ice on the edges of parking lots. Potholes reappearing in the roads.

Well, no, I don’t miss that last one.

Detroit Tigers Opening Day.

When an afternoon of 55 degrees feels balmy. Decisions being made about changing storm windows for screens, or does that still occur?

Official season dates are the same for Central Florida, Michigan, or the Ozarks, but from my house, spring begins early in February and melts into summer by late March. Every seasonal change is crammed into those weeks.

In the Heights, spring was a hope, a wish, so that any shift in winter temperatures or weather was noticed and discussed. Icicles fell for the last time. Heavy coats were replaced with jackets. Garden plans were discussed. Bulb flowers—irises, daffodils, jonquils, tulips, hyacinths, crocus—made their appearance.

I miss bulb flowers, trilliums, robins singing, and the true green of new lawns. The Monet paintings of new leaves on weeping willows, the red buds of sugar maples proving that winter does end.

I ordered a packet of Queen Annes lace seeds and planted them in two pots for my window container garden, between the red geraniums and sword ferns. Looking forward to a touch of Michigan summer.

But as March slips into April and I enjoy the green, floral, bird singing spring of my neighborhood, I still look back with longing on the end of winter in the Heights, and the first signs of spring.

To describe yearning, the same poet adds, “…and the palm tree of the pine…”

Happy spring to you, whenever it decides to begin.