Candlemas Day

Today began with a large glass bowl hitting the linoleum, shattering into millions of tiny shards as if a bomb went off.  Auspicious beginnings.  The cats stayed out of the way while the vacuum cleaner tallied up points by gleaning the razor-edged breakage from the green tile and every crevice in between.  

It was a snow day from school, even though the predictions didn't span out into the foot of snow which became more of a suggestion than a commitment.  The wind has picked up, and I went up and down the building stairwell, closing windows left cracked open for ventilation.  The groundhog was declared to have not seen his shadow, hinting that an early spring will arrive sooner rather than later.  It is this time of year that we who live in the north are skullcracking nuts with desire for less darkness and more light, for  the shoots of early bulbs to emerge, for watching squirrels come out and chase each other in Valentine's romance.  Oh, for the drip of melting snow.

Till then, the squirrels sleep in semi-hibernation, and lord knows any local groundhogs have sense enough to stay deep in their burrows.  The very beginning of spring is showing, however, in the grocery stores with pots of crocuses and daffodils, with the next flush of vegetables from Mexico looking fatter, greener, and more palatable than what was coming in from beyond Chile.

Darkened skies come as the invisible sun slid down the trajectory below the horizon.  A hush of snow fills the empty spaces of air like fog, making the view milky white blending into dull blue, with the buildings of the city veiled like the ghosts of castles.  Trucks push and pull piles of snow back and forth; salt is poured in biting scuds of sodium drifts, its melting trails are as circular punctuation in the ice, the remaining acidic saltwater evident in both the rusting cars and dead grass found along the sidewalk edges come spring.

I think it may be time to start dying eggs.  Beeswax always cheers me up.  Clean off the table, pull out the colors.  A genuine precursor for spring.  Frogs, there could be frog designs.  Rabbits.  Cats and suns.
If you are lucky enough to have someone in the house with you that loves you so, tell them you love them back even if only by taking one of their dishes back to the sink.  I shall listen and mend that motion into an egg telling a story of human closeness, of sacrifice and beauty emulated in simple measures.  Red for hope, yellow for happiness, blue for good health, black for eternity.

Sleep well, nothing ever stays the same good or bad; just don't give up.  It's okay to complain a bit, believe me, I know.   Let the planets and stars glide overhead, more brilliant because of the dark, with their distant light pinpricking the black above.  Sleep with a squirrel tucked under your chin, draw in the little birds, call the cats and dogs and children.  Sleep safe, you are good.