I have found the perfect song for spring. I listen to it in the monotone of winter and hear acoustic raindrops and colors. In the sticky nights of summer, the cello’s solo voice is soothing and in the fall I hear in its lyrics a promise of renewal while the world lies down in surrender. Nick Drake’s “Cello Song” covered by The Books and Jose Gonzalez sounds like a rainstorm, migrating warblers, and a forest floor full of wildflowers: 

You have nothing to fear/ for the dreams that came to you/ when you were young/ told of a life where/ spring has sprung

Spring in Minnesota is an awful, muddy tease. As soon as the first goldfinches- still gray-green and molting- arrive at full birdfeeders, it’ll snow. When pale crocuses begin to bravely emerge from freezing soil, a blizzard is forecast. The endless cycle of daytime thawing and nighttime freezing transforms sidewalks into shiny obstacle courses of thin ice. And just when the nights seem to remain above freezing- when we’re tempted to store the snow shovels in the garage again- winter reappears with its black and white last words. We reach for our boots and mittens again, annoyed and humbled. 

This April was particularly wintery. Lakes remained locked tight in ice. Flocks of migrating birds bottle-necked in Minneapolis and St. Paul since their northern homes were still buried in snow. Windows stayed tightly shut while furnaces worked overtime. 

So forget this cruel world/ where I belong/ I’ll just sit and wait/ And sing my song

It’s the lack of color that’s hard to take. All winter in the North Country, from November to March, the world is painted in shades of gray. Just gray. Gray can be beautiful in its own way, but after five months- when our bodies start to yearn for fresh asparagus and warm sunshine- I also get thirsty for colors.

Desperately in April, I start to search the black, white, and gray landscape for anything new. A green shoot. Red buds on the maples. Anything.

And it’s a miracle every year, when the earth awakens and the colors return. Because, always- despite all else, the colors return.

And if one day/ you should see me in the crowd/ lend a hand and lift me/ to your place in the clouds

The first colors I saw this year were subtle. On April 1st we were way up north, just miles away from Canada. And yet, the osier dogwoods were turning bright red and the deep-wood aspens were boasting their ultra-white powdery “sunscreen.”

And later, further south in St. Paul, the colors continued to emerge; the yellow new-growth of willows, silver-fuzzed aspen catkins, green grass shoots- first on the golf courses and then in my yard, dark green winter greens stretching up from farm fields, rusty and white wood ducks, red and yellow painted turtles, deep dripping emerald moss, dainty blue squill, and pale purple crocuses.

In its own time, the earth offers to us everything we need. Yet, waiting in April for the grass to green requires the patience of a saint. Luckily for those of us less venerated, Nick Drake’s “Cello Song” also exists among the promises unfurling from blossoms and buds.