I am sitting in my father's armchair, on Equinox, 2018
Cold weather holds the progress of the year at about four daffodils and three patches of crocus. After two inches of snow, a thaw wind is gusting against my house.
After a short morning walk, I am looking out the window. Watching cardinals and black-capped chickadees and house sparrows at the feeder.
I Remember a poem by the Spanish poet Jorge Guillen, "Beato Sillón" or "Blessed/Holy Chair."
Through the poem, Guillen sinks into the peace of his house, his chair. "Nothing is happening," he writes. "My eyes don't see; they know. The world in well/made." For him, the high tide of present time in that place is everything.
Now I hear the heater fan's white noise. Tangles of black winter branches divide the robin's-egg blue sky outside my window. Fat pussy willows have emerged way up above the street.
The snow I walked through this morning was crunchy and dirty. Now the sidewalk is under a deep puddle. The waterfall from my blocked gutters pulses and splatters onto the front steps.
For an instant, sparrows take over the feeder, fighting, crowding, attacking, pushing, flying off.
Now Nothing is happening. I am here in my father's armchair at time's high tide. I know that the wet wind from the southwest is sweet with spring. The world is well/made.
This is Bill Felker with Poor Will’s Almanack. I’ll be back again next week with notes for the fifth week of early spring. In the meantime, find an armchair. Sit and watch and listen.
