FEBRUARY RENDEZVOUS

When I hear the doves making their soft, soothing, almost plaintive early morning sounds, I know I have rendezvous to keep - rendezvous that knit my human world with that of the natural world. I don't know that the two worlds are separate, but one would might be described as having to do with sweeping down the cobwebs in the ceiling-wall corners, while the other is time spent watching the late summer spider spin its web in the porch ceiling-post corner. Tenuous, webby things with which to knit.

For many years, in February, I've chosen a day to go to the south side of the garage to see if the daffodils are up. They have never failed me. And, again, there they were on my chosen day. Brave, little, thick green spears that give my heart a leap of satisfaction. The daffodils are the very old kind, not so showy as the new breeds, but almost indestructible. The bulbs came from the long ago farm home. Over the years I haven't done much for them other than pull up a few bulbs now and then to keep them from getting too thick.

Along the more visible flower-bordered walk, the newer, more handsome varieties haven't, at this writing, even broken through the ground. Although, when in bloom, they make a lovelier splash, they do not lift my spirits as do the old ones. Harbingers of spring, they are, green hints of warm breezes and humming bees. They set my mind to wandering over hill and dale and mentally visualizing Wordsworth's hosts of golden daffodils. I lean against the warming wall of the garage and try to put William's words into proper place.

On another rendezvous day I go to see how the creek is flowing where the Troll Bridge used to be. The Troll Bridge? It was demolished. A little, yellowed, frayed clipping still hangs, precariously, on my refrigerator door, stating that the City Council will consider approval for a foot bridge at Arena Park. I guess that approval got nixed in view of bigger things like riverboat gambling!

I suppose that, somewhere, Troll, growing older, is waiting, as am I. But the creek flows on, and the little waterfall at the rock shelf gurgled a welcome when I kept my rendezvous. Later, when the red-winged blackbirds return and the killdeer or plovers, I shall take my recorder down to the creek on a day when the water is happy and trap the sounds. Perhaps the merry, silvery songs of the returning meadowlarks can be picked up in the background. I know that sounds of murmuring waters and soughing pines have already been recorded, but where are these pines, the waters? When my trapped sounds are replayed, say on a cold, restless night, I want to remember sitting there on the rock shelf, sun warm on my shoulders, a southerly breeze tangling my hair, bees on nearby dandelions. Perhaps the plop of a frog will startle the muskrat if he be about, making his silvery, watery V disappear instantaneously. It is just an earth-banked creek, the banks falling in, and sometimes muddy, but I can more easily "be there" whereas I can't place myself with unknown gurgling waters and unvisited singing pines.

Another rendezvous to keep is with the Mississippi River. Some past Februaries there have been moonscape ice floes bumping grudgingly along. How brown muddy water can make such white ice teases at my brain. This year the river was as smooth as glass when I arrived on a sunny afternoon. Entering through the south sea wall gate, I always feel as if I'm suddenly divorced from the city. Here is a separate world, a world of slow-moving barges, Mark Twain, fancy steamboats, calliopes, catfish and canoes. This year, due to last year's floods, there were heaps of jumbled ballast rocks, out of place and awaiting fixing. But, like the patient Troll, the rocks will have to wait, I suppose, until this riverboat casino thing is settled.

February is almost too short and my knitting yarn too flimsy to make a whole cloth.

REJOICE!