Out My Kitchen Window

I love the color of daffodils. But, this is not daffodil season. This is not spring, the season of renewal. Yet, in every season is the season of renewal. Not only is the promise of harvest revealed in the planting, but the potential of planting is revealed in the harvest. I find the color of daffodils in the stray kernels and broken ears of corn that hide among the dry stalks in the harvested field outside my kitchen window.

This morning I don't see the color; I remember the color, the hue of hard kernels found on the slightly frozen but still mushy soil underfoot when I walked the perimeter of this little farm in the lingering gray of the past few overcast mornings. Each morning a light layer of melting snow still held hard-edged footprints of moving deer. Today the temperature is lower, the sky is clear blue and most of the ground is frozen. There is another thin layer of snow, this time sparkling. A flock of crows has settled onto the field and along the mostly bare tree line. Snow covers the field like a crocheted sweater, revealing a tweed under-layer. The remembered color of corn and the remembered color of daffodils mixes in my mind, so the scene of stark branches and snippets of crow silhouettes becomes a symbol of renewal. The seeds of autumn are the seeds of spring. My mind reaches for the chartreuse of spring, but it is stopped. This is late autumn and winter is ahead. O, God, let me remember this moment.