This morning, I learned that cattails have a gel inside them like aloe, and that their fluff was once used to prevent diaper rash, and that they can be turned into flour. Scraggly, ditchy cattails! I'd had no idea.
After work this afternoon I took Eevee for a walk. The sun was shining on snow, and the morning's sharp wind had died down. We were walking along a snow-covered pathway when she suddenly pounced, and nuzzled her long snout into a snow bank, then poked out one of her long paws and produced a mitten from deep down. She shook it back and forth, and then, distracted from her treasure by a chipmunk, pelted off down the path again.
Pigeons caught her attention next, swooping low over the water and flapping their wings loudly. Then a poodle on the far side of the river, and then the absolute delight of a freshly thawed and trickling stream. I wouldn't let her bound in, and after a while she let me draw her further up the path. She pawed at some old cattail husks, which sprang free of the snow and then lifted away altogether to reveal a strong and bright spring-green shoot. The yellowed stalk, papery and crumpled, had been hiding and protecting all that fresh, irresistible life.
It's minus sixteen with the windchill, and yet even here, hidden within the shell of last year's cattails, tender and strong plants are growing.
And in my heart an Easter spirit whispers, "life stepping out of death - fingerprint of God!"
And in my mind I'm listening again to an old podcast and hear Susie Dent explain erumpent (bursting forth, burgeoning with life).
The bright green stalk lies brilliantly against the snow.
And in my head Jeff Goldblum twinkles handsomely, "life, uh, finds a way."
A storm is coming tonight and I don't care. Winter might roar and shake his mane, but I saw spring today, and the ground is erumpent.
