Spring in the Rockies {poetry for lent}

Here's a poem my aunt emailed me to share here.  It's appropriate for this season, and lovely to remember the way life and death intermingle.

 Spring in the Rockies

Is spring a joke?

 I ask this with each passing day,

One bringing snow and wind,

The next one sunny skies, and Robins in our yard.

Yesterday, driving home from the mountains,

Clumps of new snow graced the rocky crevices,

That yesterday were bare and sun drenched.

And, tomorrow will be both again.

Clouds, the most beautiful images

Of snow and rain, oozing out

From containers which can not hold

Another drop for another moment.

One curve, and the sun in all it’s splendor

Shone more brightly than the lights

of the city that it graces ever will.

And the temperature in the air around us,

Rose 20 degrees in the next ten minutes.

Today, I miss the mountain snow, and fog

The patterns snow makes on the highway,

as it blows on the pavement in front of me.

And the flakes, first scattered,

Then steady as the sunshine, only colder.

“For everything there is a season”, and

In the Colorado High Country, all seasons

Greet us in the cycle of one day.

That is the Rocky Mountain Spring.

We know that summer will come,

Blooming with life, and mud, and sun,

And parched earth, begging again for winter snow!

We cannot spate life and death here.

Each one leading the way to the other.

One sacrifice bringing new life,

And seeming death bursting forth in Life adbundant!

                                                Julie Dufford 2014