Here Comes The Sun, cont.

In my nostalgia for summers past and anticipation of summers to come, I think of swimming, kayaking, basking in the sun while wiggling my toes into warm sand at the beach, and reveling in the sights, sounds, and smells of flowers, bees, and birds. 

For me, summer used to begin on the first day of school vacation, the season of long days.  But a more universal, and just as specific, beginning of summer (in the northern hemisphere) is the vernal (spring) equinox ("equal night"), when the night and day are the same length. 

Members of many species, myself included, become more alive again at this first "scent" of summer.  Skunks come out of their dens, and we get the first whiffs of their presence.  Chipmunks emerge from underground and leave their first tracks on the softening snow.  The yearling beavers leave their dens as their parents get ready to have new pups. 

Flower buds of the willows, alder, beaked hazel, poplars, and elms are poised to respond to the first warmth, to open and reveal their beautiful colors and varied forms. 

Some of the birds that overwintered begin to sing, and the migrant birds are plying the skies by the millions on their way north from the tropics.  The first are starting to arrive. 

Nature is about to burst at the seams. 

Here comes the sun.  Doo'n do do.  Here comes the sun.  And I say, it's all right.

The warming sun signals relief, and I'm ready.  The rest of nature has been waiting and getting ready as well.