Welcome to this first addition of “The Golden Crone” to celebrate International Women’s Day. These submissions are literally from the ground where our mighty Genesee begins.
Roots and Shoots
I grew up on the banks of the Genesee River and I reside there still. One mile from my home the mighty waterway trickles out of the ground as a rambling, wrong way stream blocked by beavers and bathed in by geese. This headwater is supplied by the same springs which feed my well. My embryonic cells bathed in it.
Every day for as long as I can remember it has quenched my thirst. I am more river than woman.
Around the first week of February, it begins to awaken. Before the snow melts and the days stretch out, I feel rivulets begin to trickle beneath the packed ice. Within a couple of weeks the hills are tinted red with the first signs of fauna drinking deeply of the barely thawed ground water.
By the first of March patches of matted grass are visited by flocks of robins and that’s when everyone knows Spring is just around the corner. The Lion may rage, but the squirrels and apple blossoms are not shaken by his hollow roar.
Before the Spring equinox we’ll be cheered by Daffodils and Dandelions (Please let them grow. The bees and butterflies need them). Maple sap and Irish whisky will flow free; the weight of winter will melt away.
Three times the peepers will freeze. Before the last, windows and doors will be flung open. Music will drift from passing cars. The scent of the earth will return. A visit to the river in early Spring reveals a madness of activity. Life begins on it’s banks.
If you feel weary, rest yourself there to be soothed. You might just remember that you, too, are more River than human.
TGC
