Here it is the weekend, and here I am not sleeping late, which is always a little disappointing, though on the other hand I do like being awake and alone and curled into my couch corner as house and neighborhood slowly shift into daylight. I have some hopes of pruning rosebushes this weekend, which Tom thinks is a silly idea ("There's still snow!") and I think is a charming idea ("There's less snow!"). Roses should be pruned very early in the spring, and since there's nothing else I can do in the garden yet, I always think of that project as an inauguration. But it's true that the air might not be quite warm enough for me to really enjoy myself. I guess I'll have to wait and hope.

Meanwhile, I'm catching glimpses of last fall's spinach crop, green and eager against the muddy soil. And as soon as the snow melts a bit more, I'll be able to get into the kale bed, cut away the winter-wilted stalks, and make way for new shoots. The suddenness of spring is always an amazement: by the end of the month I should be harvesting.

I started off yesterday feeling a little glum about myself, but then at lunchtime I had a surprise visit from north-country friends, and afterward I spent all afternoon talking to Teresa and Jeannie about poems. So I'm more or less back on track now, still a little wobbly, but who isn't? I'm reading Thomas Hardy, I'm slicing up vegetables, I'm stoking the wood stove, I'm shamelessly enjoying these comma splices, I'm feeling the planet shift and roll beneath my feet.

Spring is, without question, my favorite season. Every year I am gobsmacked, exhilarated . . . I long for it. Spring is to the body what imagination is to the mind: a reckless wonder.