In Early Spring

47 In Early Spring robert cording The fields were still matted, and dirty snow huddled in patches, but the swing of the earth had taken place and it tilted toward the sun’s warmth which heated up the back of my neck. When I passed the horse I pass every day on my walk, it whinnied and tossed its head back and forth— perhaps a touch of sun worship in him or the need to shake off months of cold, or maybe to shake me from myself— and for once it had my undivided attention, and it bent its long neck down to a ball and ran, its head moving the ball left then right with the deft touch of a soccer player. Again and again, it cut and drove 48 ecotone the ball from one end of its ring to the other, spring’s energy moving through its body, flanks and hooves taking form, its tail and mane becoming the single unbroken line of a prehistoric horse drawn on the muscled stone of a cave wall. Standing there, the soft animal of my body roused itself, and I began to run— not far and downhill mostly— toward the pond, where, bent over, chest heaving, I stopped to laugh at myself and catch my breath. Six geese skidded in, a towhee and then a red-winged blackbird called out, and the light on the water quickened in a breeze, each thing shaping itself to the shape of the minute, the month, the season, the turning earth. ...