Show By IRIS Even though spring comes once a year it is always unpredictable It has its own date on the calendar usually marked with a blue singing bird but spring cant can't read Long after the Hie time marked for it to arrive spring often remains a state of mind THE SIGNS OF THE TILE SEASON are many One day when gray clouds blow the gulls are back They wheel and soar against a wind-scoured wind sky Their cry irritable screech I though it is welcomes the first days of spring I IThe The gulls share their early spring air with kites which children who always believe in spring long before the I adults do fling into the sky They remain connected to their I kite kie ki e by a slender piece of string but the children are I ground bound In a literal sense only Who has flown kites I Iy y in the wild March air without the feeling It is themselves I Who soar and who share the clean air with the screaming I 1 gulls r t SPRING IS A T TEASE Rain turns turn cold and changes to i snow and frost covers the tender green which has been coaxed prematurely out of the grass The spongy earth steams in a midday sun and a robin hops hopefully from tree to tree in search of his new spring home Then bluster Is back and once more cold clouds scud across gray skies f t f ii i t ahead of a strong March wind iI j Suddenly in mid-March mid when scarcely anyone can i f I I I remember what green outdoors looks like the willow trees r r show bright yellow against the brown of all other trees i r Day after alter day buds burst forth from forsythia and lilacs and honeysuckle and through the chill brown mud of earth i r the straight green stalks of bulb plants push their way to r the air Biologists may know what prompts this awakening r but the rest of us dont don't really care careWe We just appreciate the ut appearance of the bright green shoots wi without worrying too much about the why f PEOPLE REACT TO SPRING in tn Ina a mysterious biological i way too All over town boys disappear under cars to tinker 1 t. t and hum fathers drop their rakes without apology and an head 4 for the golf course and clotheslines are bedecked with r billowing winter-dusty winter drapes Mothers r who really know i better clean windows one day and complain the next about I a sudden salt mud-and-salt storm Old men take their wear weary y bones into the sunshine where they put their chairs on the south side of the houses and tilt back to dream and remember ber o But spring is always fickle Nature gets caught with her plants down once a year To see daffodils poke their butteri butter- butter i gold heads up through the snow is an annual sight and so sois sois I. I is the delicate pink of peach blossoms plastered with white II f Meadowlarks look dejected about bout heading north too soon when the strong spring winds prevent them from making much headway and even the screaming gulls turn back and fly over the great lake when the freshly plowed fields get buried under six inches of fresh fallen snow SPRING RARELY FOOLS CHILDREN They are greedy greed y r for sunshine however much It may alternate with cold winds Children recognize spring for the yearly miracle it is and andi i f they greet it with a literal opening of their arms and shouts of joy Sedate adults must greet spring with more restrained r happiness but we ye are glad for the annual renewal of our spot of earth Winter i is hard but we wouldn't have it any other way How else could we r really ally appreciate spring I I J. J |