Surprising to step out on a day like today and pull warm air into the lungs and feel the spongy earth beneath the boots and listen to the disagreements and opinions of two hundred of birds at least and to walk to the weeping willow and pull a strand to the face and see up close the little lettuce leaf buds dotted along the limb, the limb slender and useful as a pencil lead, the limb pliable but cold still, drooping towards the warming earth, conserving its energy, gathering its strength, biding its time, talking to itself as I do when I walk in the fields. Surprising it is. Yes.…