A Walker in the Suburbs

I heard them last night on my first after-dinner walk of the spring. I ripped off my headphones and ran a few feet, straining to make sure I wasn’t mistaken, that the sound I heard was really spring peepers. March 17 seems early for the little guys, especially after the winter we’ve had, but I guess the mild weather has coaxed them from hibernation.

The sound was unmistakable; it is the first song of spring, of warm days and cold nights, of still water and marshy lowlands. It seems ages since I heard the last crickets of fall chirping ever more slowly in the chill autumn air. We’ve had five months of quiet winter evenings since then. Now, with the peepers, nights are full of sound again.

“Nature’s first green is gold, its hardest hue to hold,” wrote Robert Frost. He meant that it is precious and fleeting. But it is literally true, too. Often the first green of spring is closer to yellow in color. I thought of this today as I stepped out back and noticed that while we were watching the snow banks dwindle, the old miracle of spring was starting to unfold amidst the whiteness. It is the witch hazel tree, the earliest harbinger of winter’s end. It often surprises me in February like this, blooming long before I expect it to. Why don’t I look for it? Because it is the first, I guess, and because at a certain point in winter spring does not seem possible. Warm breezes and green trees seem like a dream, like a life we once lived but can live no more. The witch hazel tree reminds me otherwise.