Landscape My West

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But today the sun is shining, and a thawing warmth has returned to the world. They give hope that the hounds of spring have about finished their chase. In March the picketpin gophers will poke out from the warming soil. Bears will waken from their long slumber and make for the green fronds that grow in the Nature Conservancy's Pine Butte Swamp just five miles from here. The birds will be back, crows probably first, and nutcrackers, and then the smaller fry. Already the great horned owl is nesting.

Pasque-flowers will push through the ground juniper in a spot we have neglected in favor of nature's way. Then will come those lovely little vernal visitors: moss campion, forget-me-nots bluer than belief and dwarf phlox whiter than purity. We shall walk softly, careful not to tread on them. These are carpet flowers, not to be abused. Even as they still bloom, deck meadow and streamside and narrow-leaf balsam root splash yellow on the hills.

A high old time, that's springtime in my West. Come summer I'll look east over the tawny grasses to distances my eye cannot reach. And I'll look west to Ear Mountain and its shouldering masses. Ear Mountain, my friend, my private possession, as it is the possession of all who grew up in its shadow.

Sometimes in harsh weather I think of going elsewhere until spring. But where? Wouldn't I be uneasy in such a here-and-there life? Wouldn't I be wishing the days away until I could come home? Like a man waiting for an overdue train or plane, I see myself watching the clock, willing the minutes to pass.

In time I may have to join the "snowbirds" in their flight from the cold and their return when the grass starts to green. Maybe.

But not yet.

No,not yet.

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