Fool’s Spring

Team Blue,

Ah, my favorite season: Fool’s Spring.

For I love to be a fool - to see the future within today, the romance of expectation, to step, off of the cliff, and trust that ground will meet me.

They call it Fool's Spring, I suppose, because your hopes will be dashed. The name is meant to mock, and to elevate the mocker. “I will not believe in this spring, for I am wise and know the wily ways of mother nature. It will yet snow. It will yet be frigid. The deer and the chickadee will spend another night in cold and gnawing hunger. We are not yet through the dire straits of winter. Only a fool would act as though spring is here.”

But what company I keep! A bluebird, just this morning, had arrived. He sang his heart out, exulted. “Cheer up, cheerful charmer”, they say he sang. He’s claimed the front yard. He's rushed up here - he may well have been a half a continent away just last week. Might I have even seen him months ago, in fall? There are several bluebirds that nest on the farm, and many who are born here each year. They know their way; have they made their way back? He calls boldly and continually, declaring his existence to every predator and prey, competitor and kin. I recall a poem I once wrote, in a different time and place and season: 

The bluebird sits

perched high above the gorge,

daring any and all to see it,

letting there be no doubt: 

“For I am a jewel, 

and a jewel 

must be 

beheld.”

This jewel is among my brethren, singing the praises of the Fool’s Spring.

I am visited by a bee. A honey bee, from a hive of mine or my neighbor, roused to exploration. “But there are no flowers yet, the daffodils are weeks away”, you claim, but look closely and you will see the flowers of the maple getting ready to bloom. They are small, but bees are small. Don't be surprised if you see a bee, some day soon, yellow legged with pollen. 

I am joined by the maple itself. I've heard tell - and seen purported photographic evidence - that folks are tapping their maple trees in these parts. The great pump of life and water has begun. Is the maple tree foolish? To begin to soften its tissues, to grow less numb to the cold, when cold is yet to come? 

I am joined by the unmistakable greenish tint of the grass, by the poised vibrancy of every leafless stem, by flocks of robins and of blackbirds, by the swollen softening of the river ice, by the thunder, by the lightning, by the roar of rain on the barn roof. I am joined by a moth, warmed and awoken from its winter spot. 

This moth may yet prove to be a fool. How cold a night can an awoken moth tolerate? Yes, there are fools among those of us who celebrate Fools' Spring. Not everyone has it under control, not every gamble pays off. I am sure that every year, somewhere on the continent, a bluebird rushes north, too far too fast, and is caught by the return of winter, and perishes. 

In human affairs, they say, the optimal amount of fraud is not zero. If a system has no fraud, it’s probably too cautious, too cumbersome, too slow. It may be better for all if we tolerate some small percent of fraud.

So, too, for evolution, from the perspective of the Bluebird, with a capital B. If no lower-case bluebird ever rushes north, too far too fast, and dies from the cold, then the capital B Bluebird is likely not moving north far and fast enough. I cannot be confident that this morning's bluebird will make it through some coming night, and I could not tell apart the birds to even know. 

I can be more confident, however, in the maple. Were it to perish one night, I would know. It could not confuse me, could not present to me a doppelgänger exact in space and form. And I have faith, too, in the permanence of the Bluebird, that he will make it through these nights, that the fool’s unknown step will land upon the ground, granted by grinning generosity.

So join me in celebrating Spring, the once and future Spring, the Spring that will come, it has come, it walks among us, if only for today, and not forevermore, for the tomorrow of tomorrow is upon us, and the time for prudent exuberance is at hand. 

Act rightly,

Twin Crix