The First Emergence of Spring

Tony Kelly: (from Ethos Group Newsletter , 1983)

The Goddess loosens the clasp of Winter about her throat, and the hazel catkins tumble out like the tresses of a young lady when she's in a mood to play.  Oh, but her play is subtle, and all around as far as the eye can see, her dress is but of the Winter still.  But wait!  Look!  She decks herself in purple jewels, so dark you'd think she gathered them out of the night itself; and she's set them in her subtle art all upon the bare branches of the alder trees.  And under the alders the grass is green and fresh and the fine young leaves of her greensward bosom thrust aside the old cloak of beech leaves that she left by the wayside when she walked the autumn road.  Look closely to see her jewels or, if you're not in a mood to look at all, then even so, though you see nothing at all that the eye will speak of, there's that in the air, and close to the earth, that wasn't in the air before.  Too subtle for a scent, too young and fresh for a memory, it seems like the first dance of Spring.  But there's time enough yet for hail or snow or wind and ice, and let the Dancer weave the shape of the dance.  Rain is the warp of her dancing dress and the weft is the rushing stream, and all around she dances in the rain-splashed puddles, caresses in her soft wet hands, and darts away then into the thick mists that lie like an enchantment over the land.