Overture to Spring (by the Creepy-Crawlies)
When my friend Kathie lived in Memphis, I counted on her weather reports for a clue about what the westerly winds would blow this way. Then she moved to Asheville. Even now, she has a knack for sending us her weather, chiefly via the northerly winds of winter.
Yesterday, for instance, Kathie mentioned having “blue sky, puffy clouds, and a fresh breeze blowing through the open doors and windows.” I looked out our front windows and saw dreary drizzle under dark skies. Yet sure enough, though we got but one-fifth the respite from winter Kathie enjoyed, we soaked up the warmth. I found myself sweating in my shirtsleeves.
Our three-hour spell brought out what my friend Judy affectionately calls the “creepy-crawlies.”
Half a dozen carpenter ants made their way from the wood pile or tunnels in our infrastructure to our living room floor. Ladybugs, which had curled up for a few weeks on baseboards and window sills, flitted around pondering whether to head outdoors.
Which is precisely what my dog Opie and I did. As we walked to Fox Mountain Crossing, our routine round trip, we saw a fat brown centipede crossing the road. I told him, Mr. Centipede, you’re in for a rude surprise when winter boomerangs this way. He paid no attention.
Fifty feet further, we saw a little yellow frog, not much bigger than a tadpole, whose tragic end came with his first effort to cross the road. Still shaking our heads in mourning for the little fellow, we came to a sizeable puddle, where a larger toad or frog was kicking and hopping up from the bottom of the pool and having a whee of a time. He really cheered us up. Before long, Opie was digging his nose into leaves, collecting seeds in his fur, and trying to roll around to bring home new scents.
It’s already March. A warm spell of merely a few hours rings the approaching chimes of spring. In the minds of ants, ladybugs, centipedes, toads and frogs, it was time to offer, if not a full overture, at least a sneak preview of spring’s symphony. With them, we savored the appetizer even if we would have to wait for the full course.
Uh-oh. The tune that came to mind was the emotionally ambivalent spiritual, Soon I will be done with the troubles of the world . . . Goin’ home to live with God. To that tune, these words worked their way up from my subconscious:
Soon it will be time for the chiggers and the ticks, the chiggers and the ticks, the chiggers and the ticks.
By evening we were experiencing a fulfillment of Bob Dylan’s old song, “A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall.” A squirrel scrambled across the road toward his nest. A cottontail darted in front of my headlights. I straddled a toad with my tires. It’s getting cold again. I wonder if the creepy-crawlies will decide they’ve presented a long enough preview of their spring overture. Especially the carpenter ants.
