Geese and planting

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
~Mary Oliver

All afternoon, geese were streaming by overhead. I love their sound: that urgent, excited racket; unmistakable, impossible to ignore.

Again I was outside without a jacket, enacting the bravery and hope that comes with planting in springtime.

Yesterday, it was sixty degrees. This morning, it's snowing. But I'm not worried about my peas. I've planted them in the snow before, even in the half-frozen swamp of one overly promising February thaw. They've always come through.

For the other things I planted yesterday, the spinach, scallions, radishes, and arugala, I have this. This is my cold frame. One old storm window and four pieces of wood screwed together and braced at the corners, and my seedlings stay cozy at night. So the theory goes, anyhow.

We'll see how it plays out, in practice. Now quit snowing!