Green week: 1

Whenever I think of green, one of my favorite colors (and forces), I think of this e.e. cummings poem, number 41 from his 1940 book 50 Poems:

up into the silence the green

silence with a white earth in it

you will(kiss me) go

out into the morning the young

morning with a warm world in it

(kiss me)you will go

on into the sunlight the fine

sunlight with a firm day in it

you will go(kiss me

down into your memory and

a memory and memory

i)kiss me(will go)

It's almost like a meditation, isn't it? All of the words so simply apt. I'm participating in shining egg's green week this week, so this morning after we rode I went tromping up the 'mountain' to look for signs of spring. We haven't quite reached the spring moment where everything is suddenly green and new all 'round, as in the poem. That green cathedral moment happens for Virginia sometime in late March or early April.

But I love the little green orb of plant life above, pushing bravely through the dead mulchy field. And even though they're green for much of the year in this part of the world, I love the way the twining honeysuckle vines below seemed to be climbing and greening at the very moment that I took the photo. I actually saw this vine on our ride this morning, from the back of a horse. It took no small amount of climbing to snap a photo minus the horse. We also saw another sign of spring on our ride this morning. Not my favorite (green) kind. A mama coyote sat on top of a little hill just below us and followed our little pack (2 horses, 2 women, one dog) with her eyes. The spring is the worst time for coyotes around here. They're a fairly new phenomenon this far east and north, but I guess that's what global warming will bring us. The horses seemed unfazed, but I was worried about my completely docile dog. Gillian said that she had read that coyotes usually have very large litters, sometimes as many as 11 or 12 pups, so I guess Mama Coyote had a lot to protect. More green tomorrow.

PS: Thanks to all of you who left kind comments on my post about my grandmother a couple of weeks ago. They were much appreciated.