"The day is ending,
The night is descending;
The marsh is frozen,
The river dead.

Through clouds like ashes
The red sun flashes
On village windows
That glimmer red."
-  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Afternoon in February 

February is a melancholy month. A time when winter grips hard and doesn't want to let go. Snow and slush and cold and wind and illness and travel that is difficult and it all is the same every February. I want to hibernate like a bear and only come out when the winds die down and the sun shines warm and the small white flowers show sweet promise.

But life goes on and life requires motion-even in February! So I push through and get up and move and strip the bed and throw the blankets and sheets into the washer so I can't just crawl back in and waste away my day. Each day that I move-even a little- I am moving closer to Spring, to the orange poppies and purple iris-still waiting for me there in that small garden just behind my back door-now hidden under that soggy white blanket of half-melted snow.