Of Kooser and Cranes

I count four piles scattered lovingly around my house:  my grey-and-yellow backpack filled with down mittens, a scarf, a Thinsulate hat and some kleenex; a torn garbage-can liner stuffed with my sleeping bag (good to 20 degrees) and a fleece blanket that Allison sewed me one Christmas; my new egglant-colored snow boots, laces loosened and wool socks next to their soles; and my blue-and-white overnight bag, with folded sweaters, a ziploc of toiletries, two games (Quiddler and Doodle Dice) and a pair of fleece pajamas peeking from its opening. 

But the cranes must wait.  And so, these piles will remain today, a modern homage to an ancient migration. 

I am grateful that Ted Kooser stepped in to soften the blow of a windchill- and snow-laden forecast.  Early this morning, he regaled me with small stories of life in the Bohemian Alps, of wild-plum thickets sprung from passerby birds and of entire worlds reflected in the fish-eye lens of spring's first thaw.  And he almost made me forget the cranes standing motionless, their knobby feet anchored atop the icy riverbank.

A Nebraskan is nothing if not patient and hopeful.   If I didn't know that before, I certainly know it now, after turning the pages of  "My Antonia" and "Giants in the Earth."   I know that we are patient and hopeful because my neighbor Jody just asked if we'd like to hear a bluegrass band do their thing in her backyard this summer.  One does not make such plans without the audacious certainty that warmth and green grass will again return. 

And, while it is true that our snow shovels still lean just outside the back door, it is also true that the recent felling of our neighbor's Silver Maple made us dream of taut-skinned tomatoes sunning themselves even longer now on a hot, August day.

I suppose I will spend most of today indoors, aside from a walk or two with Finn and an outing to the store.  I will sit in the comfy chair, the one anchored close to our French doors, where I will watch the storm unfold.  And I suppose my mind occasionally will head up the Interstate 90 miles to where the cranes are shaking the cold from their limbs, scouring fallowed fields for warmth and kernels of corn.