Days are growing longer. This is not only a season of spiritual renewal but of natural renewal, too.
I need this reminder. The witch hazel, earliest harbinger of winter's end — whose late February blooming (pictured in Monday's post) is usually a surprise — is as brittle and dead-leafed as it was a month ago. If the crocuses and daffodils are stirring to life I wouldn't know it — they're buried under half a foot or more of crusty snow.
But the forsythia branches have a yellow glow about them, a fullness. The late winter sun feels warm on the skin. And up high the tree buds are swelling.