One Warm Day

Ice is forecast for Thursday, but for now, the pleasant respite of warm air has settled upon these mountains. Snow is a memory, the birds are a painted and scurrying mob, the clouds have fled, the honeysuckle almost looks green, the waterfall sounds like artillery, Jinx resents every minute spent indoors, the crape myrtle and the snowball bush keep pestering me to prune them, and the furnace has enjoyed a small rest.

One warm day is a luxurious stretch of the limbs of the soul. But it will be spring soon enough, and the noisy, insectified summer will follow, and who will stretch whom then?

I am forever tugged between the warm weather that eases my bones and the frost that sings to my blood. It’s just the way I am.

~ S.K. Orr