A Certain Slant of Light

There's a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons--
That oppresses...

Sorry, Emily, not in my kitchen!

 

Hello February!

I love February! Do you?

Hal Borland, editorial writer for The New York Sunday Times from 1942 to 1970, and one of my favorite nature writers described this short month beautifully....

Here comes February, a little girl with her first valentine, a red bow in her wind-blown hair, a kiss waiting on her lips, a tantrum just back of her laughter. She is young as a kitten, changeable as the wind, and into everything. She can sulk, she can beam, she changes from one minute to the next...

February is soup and mittens, and it is a shirt-sleeve day that demands an overcoat before sundown. It is forsythia buds opening in the house and skid chains clanking on the highway. February is sunrise at 6:30 for the first time since November. 

February is a gardener pruning his grape vines today and shoveling a two-foot drift off the front walk tomorrow morning. It is a farmer wondering this week if his hay will last the Winter, and next week wondering if he should start plowing. It is tiny catkins on the alder in the swamp and skunk cabbage thrusting a green sheath up through the ice. February is the tag end of Winter--we hope. But in our hearts we know it isn't Spring, not by several weeks and at least a dozen degrees. 

Hal Borland, 1900-1978

Is it just me or do you love to greet February too?