There comes a day in the long winter
sleep when the Groundhog stirs in his burrow and thinks to himself
that it must be time to wake. So he drags himself out of bed, washes
the sand from his eyes and puts on his Spring attire. This definitely
includes a crisp green linen jacket or some white wool knickers, with a
top hat. It was hard to wake, but now he is happy with the
anticipation of some time in the sun, waking the flowers and
making his garden lush once more. His fruit trees will soon bear all
kinds of beautiful fruit. So he grabs his wicker basket full of tools
and makes his way up carefully dug halls to the door which leads
outside.
In fervor the Groundhog throws the door open holding his hand up to block his eyes from the dazzling light of Spring, the kind of light that can only come after long, cold, dark days. But, to his dismay, when he opens the door that glorious light does not come bursting down upon him as he thought. Instead there is only a pale grey sky with black branches reaching towards the colorless clouds. Those clouds faintly glow, with the promise of the light they veil. The Groundhog looks about, at his dead garden, at the blackened naked trees and he is afraid. He feels the cold wind tap him on the back and when he turns to see what manner of ice has touched his soul he sees a black and twisted thing following his every move. He remembers why he went down his burrow for the comfort of sleep and quiet, that the world is a cold, scary fruitless thing when there is no light. And in that instant runs back into his door. Only as he settles back down in his bed for 6 weeks more of sleep does he hazily realize that twisted thing was probably just his shadow.
In fervor the Groundhog throws the door open holding his hand up to block his eyes from the dazzling light of Spring, the kind of light that can only come after long, cold, dark days. But, to his dismay, when he opens the door that glorious light does not come bursting down upon him as he thought. Instead there is only a pale grey sky with black branches reaching towards the colorless clouds. Those clouds faintly glow, with the promise of the light they veil. The Groundhog looks about, at his dead garden, at the blackened naked trees and he is afraid. He feels the cold wind tap him on the back and when he turns to see what manner of ice has touched his soul he sees a black and twisted thing following his every move. He remembers why he went down his burrow for the comfort of sleep and quiet, that the world is a cold, scary fruitless thing when there is no light. And in that instant runs back into his door. Only as he settles back down in his bed for 6 weeks more of sleep does he hazily realize that twisted thing was probably just his shadow.
There comes a day in the long winter
sleep of what some of us call “the desert experience” that we
wake and think about tending to our garden again. Some of us may even
have proclaimed as much on a blog, foolish though that person maybe.
Then that person went to the used book store, found a bunch of Anne
Rice novels for a dollar and settled in for 6 more weeks of winter.
you should do a painting of the groundhog scene you described
ReplyDeleteYou totally inspired me! I'm going to do a series on it with the little story next to it, like comic book panels.
ReplyDeleteI would like a print to hang on my wall please :) Hey- we should totally have a photo shoot of you dressed as "Barbarella as lucy lawless inspired by the Xena picture" sometime- fun, no?
ReplyDelete