Spring in the Air

I will be the first to admit that this has been one of the mildest winters in the Twin Cities since we moved here in 2007.  Still, the month of February was pretty brutal.

Yet, here we are in the second week of March with temperatures in the 50s-60s. As the UST shuttle I took back from the law school the other day afternoon approached the St. Paul campus stop, I saw a sight I have not seen in a very long time: throngs of students everywhere in the streets, jauntily walking around in long sleeves or light jackets.  I couldn’t help but smile.  Thank you, God.

My smile continued all the way home.  When it is horrendously cold, I travel the 1.25 miles between the shuttle stop and home by bus (or Dave picks me up).  But for the second day in a row, I walked home, jacket open, sun warming my face. Thank you, God.

I know we are likely to get some more cold days over the next month.  And, if past experience in the Twin Cities is any guide, we may even get another fall of snow.  But spring is in the air.  And, along with Gerard Manley Hopkins, I exclaim: Nothing is so beautiful as Spring!

Here is Hopkins’ poem, Spring:

Nothing is so beautiful as Spring –
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.

What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden.—Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.

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