Fare Thee Well, May

by Laurie Graham Lambert, Contributing Writer & Red River Resident

June has arrived and I’m taking stock of all the lusty stirrings that have supplanted winter’s grip. It is a lavish inventory.

Garden daffodils hail cheerfully across the valley. The robins are courting, the aspens are leafing, and the chipmunks are chipmunking. The ground squirrels surfaced from their chambers and have declared authority over sunny woodpiles.

A blasé cinnamon bear just lumbered over the north hill, fat and shiny despite his months-long fast. It does me good to see such a healthy bear this early.

The hummingbirds are back too, gorging on sugar water until the wildflowers let loose. A steady whine of chainsaws has been rivaling the river’s tumult this week. Winter winds made a mess of things, and all hands are busy clearing fallen trees. It is the season of repair. Everything and everyone thrums with vigor: the ground, the air, the light. I picked up a rock today and would swear it was alive in my hand.

To me, nothing harkens the arrival of summer like the pussy willows. Every year, I await their budding with eager impatience. Catkins of downy silver, soft as bunny tails, adorn the switches like miniature pom-poms. It is a brief pageantry, elegantly subtle, but it is the annual hallmark that tells me everything is just as it should be. Nature’s gavel has called all life to order.

Seasonal neighbors are trickling in at a steady flow, lending a mood of summer camp. We regale each other with news and updates. How the kids have grown and what they are doing. Births, marriages, and, inevitably, who among us will not be returning.

We will keep them alive in local lore. We do not forget our own around here.

I remember seeing old Bob Prunty one spring – well into his eighties – swept downriver as he cleared flotsam from the pond discharge. He managed to rescue himself, which was a good thing since it’s doubtful I’d have been able to. The torrent was extra pushy that year, churning and frothy with record snowmelt. Old Prunty would surely be right back in the thick of it if he were still around. I retell this story again and again, as if old Bob being swept downriver were as interwoven with June as the robins and daffodils.

So here we are. Another season full of promise.

Promise of daffodils. Promise of pussy willows. Promise of lives intermingling. Moth and mammal, rock and river, birth and death. Another strike of nature’s gavel. Just as it should be.