Saturday, March 27, 2010

Spring, Dammit


I know, I know. It’s spring, dammit. As an outdoorsman, I am thrilled beyond words. As an aspiring outdoor writer, I am paralyzed beyond them. Everyone expects “writers” to have something eloquent to say about spring. But what on earth can I say that hasn’t been said a billion times already, and with so much more grace and creativity than I could ever muster? I’m a fraud. Worse, I’m a blogger.

The literary giants of every generation have waxed poetic, prosaic, profoundly, and prodigiously on the annual awakening. The birds are singing, the buds are budding, the blooms are blooming, blah, blah, blah. It happens every year and every year we are deeply moved to write about it. But the masters have ruined it for the rest of us.

How can I top these beautiful, simple images?

“Nature’s first green is gold.” - Robert Frost

“April prepares her green traffic light and the world thinks Go.” - Christopher Morley

“The year's at the spring

And day's at the morn;

Morning's at seven;

The hillside's dew-pearled;

The lark's on the wing;

The snail's on the thorn;

God's in His heaven -

All's right with the world!”

Robert Browning

“Now every field is clothed with grass, and every tree with leaves; now the woods put forth their blossoms, and the year assumes its gay attire.” – Virgil

“In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.” - Margaret Atwood

“Jacaranda blue
crowns treetops in roadside show -
Springtime anew”
- Victor Gendrano

“Spring comes on little cat feet” – Carl Sandburg

What’s that? Fog comes...? Are you sure? Well, even if Sandburg wrote that about spring it would still beat the heck out of anything I could come up with.

But it's expected of me so I guess I have to try. Let's see. Something short, powerful, sensitive. Maybe even a little contemporary. Okay. Here goes.

“Spring is friggin’ awesome, once the antihistamines kick in… with their little cat feet.” - MGF

Take that, Carl.

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