Ah, the patterns of the snow and water in the grass as they blow around in the winds of the sun. Exquisite!

The view south down the Similkameen

But there’s something else going on, too. The heads of the land are cold.

And their relationships speak. Look how the cold has gone underground in this gully at Blind Creek below, and the Siya? bushes lift it up again into the air, but transformed this time and, bound with the stuff of the earth, able to hold in the air. What we view in the language below is what is called in the world of books a “poem.”

See that? Cold mixed by the earth and then warmed by the sun is red. This transformation is everywhere. It’s in the poplars…

… and even a month ago it was in the elms…

… and the birds carry it.

Look at him sing the transformation.

That’s how spring comes. To say it comes by the tilt of the Earth towards the Sun, yes, yes, we know that, but this other thing, we know that, too. It’s what our bodies know, and it’s the old knowledge that we cannot say is forgotten.

Not so long as we live. Often, it even takes the shape of the Earth, which is the shape of our mouths, when they are open.

So many of our bodies have been trained to silence, with this knowledge given to book language instead. It’s time to set written poetry in its place, as a bauble we played with for awhile and then set down by the water. And then have the courage to walk away.

This kind of walking is walking in place.

An exquisite choreography.