FROM MORNING DRIVE JOURNAL: MAY 18, 1999

Hanging grey, today.

The street shines with moisture. So much so intensely green.

Each year we dream a world into being, our dreams are vivid enough to carry us to the next dreaming, past the blow and snow of winter, past the old potatoes going soft in the cellar, past the mealy apples, back into the bright and singing green. Which is where we are today.

How much can you say about spring? Well - I think you cannot say too much. When finally the leaves start to uncurl and the robin sings its simple-minded song, we could not be more glad of it. The northern winter bends us and bends us. But if we are of good northern stock, it does not break us. Others, unused to the great grey infinitude of our winters, might break. Snap like a branch overburdened with snow. Snap, and leave a loose, raw edge exposed to the world. Snap like a mad man set fancy free upon an innocent and trusting world. Snap like a crack of ice breaking off the roof, like a smart crackle of fire in the winter fire place.

Unless you've been inoculated - a childhood spent here - our winters may be too much to carry, our spring too long in coming. It is that intensely green this morning, that you think such thoughts.

The Grand River has been running high and dark and fast - moving all the rain that fell Sunday and yesterday.

The sky is serious but not as dark as the river is. Where last week the rows of corn were more imagined than real, now there is a greenness set clearly and straight in well-measured strictness. Where water stood in the fields yesterday, today there shines mud and muck.

There is enough rain as I drive north that I need to keep the wipers flapping. I have not been paying attention to weather forecasts, so that I can be surprised. I must say I am not surprised by this rain.

At the south edge of Ripon, Crow races me again, and wins. At the finish line, he raises his arms, takes a victory lap. Crow is champion once again, reliving the glory days of his youth; he's like a good ol' boy with nothing else to hold onto.