Ode To A Spring Morning

It was just another quick morning’s walk before heading off to work.

I motion to my dog, Midah, to come join me. Now nearly deaf, she needs a bit of sign language to get her attention.

I remember when she was young and vital, a formidable presence. A mongrel yellow shepherd with a husky’s curled tail and a half-bitten-off ear, Midah once inspired terror in the heart of anything in her path.

But the cluster of deer nibbling fresh spring vegetation at the side of the road don’t budge as we approach. Midah sees them but does nothing till I throw up my arms and growl in mock attack, and then she barks once and fast walks a few wobbly steps toward them as the deer spin away and hightail it up the hill.

Once she would have given short chase – never catching them, of course – but just to show them who’s boss in our mountain neighborhood. But those days are gone now because of her stiffening joints.

We amble on, soaking up the sweet mountain air and quiet early morning atmosphere. Midah used to run ahead of me, looking for rabbits and squirrels to harry. Now she either walks slowly beside me or lags behind, sniffing every clump of plants along the way for the scent of dogs or coyotes that have passed through her domain.

The warmth of this particular morning reminds me summer can’t be that far away now, but spring – and summer – comes slowly in the mountains. A slight tinge of green is only just beginning to push through on the tawny foothills as the calendar slides past May’s midpoint.

The aspen, too, are just starting to display their tiny green  buds, and the wild raspberry bushes along the road are finally showing some signs of life after a long winter’s sleep. They promise sweetly-sour munching along our walks in July and maybe into August if the greedy birds don’t eat them all by then.

I cut across my neighbor’s property and start back toward my house. He doesn’t know I do this because I’ve never actually met him. He only spends the occasional campfire weekend at this lonesome mountain getaway, no doubt seeking relief from the stress of the city.

At the top of the path, I pause to look off to the north, where the three Bald Mountain peaks – North Bald, Middle Bald and South Bald – jut upward in the distance above Red Feather Lakes.

I’ve climbed them all over the years and can picture what it looks like atop them, though now they’re still covered with deep winter snow.

Midah gazes up at me and interrupts my reverie, and we head back to the house where a treat and a long day spent guarding the house and waiting for me to come home again awaits her.

I’ve watched my dog grow old, and sometimes it makes me sad. Because I know I am growing older, too, day by day.

But on this lovely spring morning I don’t feel old. And this old world doesn’t seem quite as old, as it once again shakes off the grays and browns of winter.

On this all-too-brief spring morning in May, I feel young again.

One more time.

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