“The Birth of Spring” from “Remembering Eternity”
“As the earth, kissed by the vernal sun, slowly awoke like a Sleeping Beauty, smelling of warmed, natural perfumes and fecund loins, stretching her dazed limbs, smiling up at the clear skies, everything around her came to life as well. Bird couples swooped and fluttered in delight as they gathered the materials for their new nests. Insects began to buzz, hiss, stridulate, crawl, swarm, and march with the energy of new life. Children scurried like cooped-up puppies let free to run. Young people fell in love or into infatuations to them indistinguishable from that more august emotion. Dotagers, remembering their own earlier insanities, felt vicarious thrills when they watched these young people.”