the transplant

Spring is coming. Temperatures hover near zero, and the ice whines on the reservoir, but days lengthen and footsteps thump like sap in a bucket. Well after five, here in Vermont, the day lingers and fades to a pinky gray. Six-thirty sees a pale glow. The evenings bite, but March doesn’t feel that far off.

Here in Vermont.

We transplanted ourselves according to wisdom, in the hard dormant freeze of winter. Our stores should have been full, all energy pulled into our efficient, hearty cores.  Growing and fruiting require stability, resources, to support the vulnerable blossoming. We left Western Massachusetts in a deep freeze, with two feet of snow on the ground. We couldn’t see the grass we were leaving, and some old planting pots stuck to their ground and refused to come with us. It made sense – less ground to stir and muck up, a heartier surface for travel.

            (It’s a pity our lives can’t ebb and flow with the seasons – as I think in every 

              season. The world around us cycles, in New England, but our energy

              requirements stay the same, with our schedules. The whole business of 

              dormancy remains lively in its figurative sense, but I think waiting for winter

              to transplant oneself has more to do with the land).

It was kinder to our destination, too, to steal away in the night of the year. As newcomers in winter, our boots and boxes don’t yet leave an imprint. It’s a gentler approach, to this sleeping land. I suppose we can spy a bit, too, before our surroundings notice. Stark and sere we can see all the crooked limbs of trees, their bare forms. Even the leaf scars, the bundle scars, the velvet naked buds of witch hazel.  Bud before leaf.  Form, structure, then flesh. Maybe when the maples wake up, they’ll have thought we’ve been here all along. They’ll yawn into fullness, and our own toes can thaw with the ground, sneaking our subtle roots into icy mud.

At least, for now, we have our houseplants, who have only dropped a couple of nervous leaves in the process. And we have the great Green Mountains, as always, pink and grand and constant at first light, even in winter.