The Beginning

I needed to write.

High clouds wisp across the graying sky this afternoon. Snow is predicted for tomorrow again. Now that I watch the seasons, they seem to move along much quicker. Or, maybe it's an age thing. Maybe my sense of time has sped up. Whatever the cause, this winter has moved quickly. It was just yesterday that the leaves turned and fell from the trees. This morning I saw buds on the dogwood trees down near Lincoln Center growing thick with anticipation. A new song bird serenaded me when I washed my car on Sunday morning. I feel the longer days in my bones.

I wish the natural world was the true touchstone of life today. But instead, there's that horrible, immoral budget put out there by the President this week. There is daily death in Iraq. I have a daughter who is almost four and a son who is almost two and I am terrified about the world they will inherit. Thoughtless, money hungry, unethical societies that eat people for lunch and let someone else worry about the crumbs. These are not spring days in the history of mankind. We are in the dark winter right before solstice when days are too short and air is too cold and people are too bundled into themselves to be identified.

And so I begin...