ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, February 26, 1996 TAG: 9602270023
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MONTY S. LEITCH
``BUT REALLY,'' she said, ``spring is here now.''
We were having Chinese. Lamenting the snows (she, more than I). And then she started in on this.
``Haven't you noticed?'' she asked. ``The birds are singing!''
Well. Maybe I'd noticed that a little bit.
``And the goldfinches? They're getting just a hint of yellow back. It's showing, right around their necks. You can see it if you look. Really look. Just a thin, little line of yellow right around the bases of their necks.''
I wondered if it were possible for one storm-sick woman, all on her own, to will spring into being.
``And the days are getting longer, too,'' she said.
In truth, I had noticed that. I'd startled myself, in fact, at 6 o'clock one evening. Wait a minute, I'd thought, getting into my car. Shouldn't it be dark by now? Isn't this still winter?
``Even if we get another snow,'' she said, ``it won't last long. It can't. It just can't now.''
Perhaps we were lured by a warm spell. A ribbon of spring, wafting through the air of that particular 50-degree day. But the next morning, I, too, noticed daffodils coming up in my yard.
Is it true? Really? That spring is here?
What most certainly is true, is that spring will be here. If not this week or next, then some week soon.
What goes around, comes around.
I don't think that particular expression is meant to imply hope. Revenge, I think, is at its core.
But imply hope it does, nevertheless. And every year, as February winds down, hope is sorely needed: the certainty that things will be, essentially, and in the long run, as they have ever been; that cycles will repeat themselves; that death will lead to birth, will lead to death, will lead to birth; that this ol' world will keep on keeping on.
This year, I'm cycling through a round of deaths. Friends and relatives dying. Friends and relatives dead. It's hard.
What understatement!
Of course it's hard. You know it's hard. I don't need to tell you what you know.
A dear friend, who recently lost her husband, said, ``People tell me they don't know what to say. They say, `Words can't express ... ' But words can express. Don't they know how much it means to hear them say, `I'm sorry'? To hear them say anything at all?''
This morning, the yard is muddy and littered with branches brought down by snow and ice and wind. In the middle of the path to the house, I found a fallen sparrow. Dead, for no apparent reason, right in the soggy grass.
Did you know that a sparrow's feathers feel like silk? That a sparrow's incredibly delicate legs have a definite violet cast? I didn't know that either. Would never have known it, had I not carried that sparrow's corpse out of the soggy grass.
I'm not talking here about silver linings in clouds. Such talk strikes me as simplistic and absurd.
On the other hand, I know this: Light is never so bright as when it follows directly on darkness.
I'm hoping. I'm putting thistle seed out on the birdfeeders as soon as I leave you. I'm going to see for myself if the yellow is, indeed, reappearing so early in this year.
Monty S. Leitch is a Roanoke Times columnist.
LENGTH: Medium: 69 linesby CNB