California will never be paradise to a Minnesota boy. After five years of living in California in the ‘80s, I missed my Minnesota so much; and I missed the seasons most of all. The following is a result of such restlessness written in 1989.*******I loved the country in the fall.I romanced it. It struggled with it.I tasted its earth and from it my spirit-strength grew.I raced country miles through harvested fields, sprinting, leaping, dodging imaginary ghosts; fallen cornstalks flying, black earth giving to my step; harder, harder I ran; farther, farther; arms, chest giving sweat; generated wind deafening me to only my breathing sounds and my internal cries. I ran to collapse and face down tasted the earth, soaked with my sweat and tears.Autumn touched my land with its a frosted breath of silence. I became the animals, the movements of a sleeping land. I suckled earth's pure springs, kicked damp leaves amid glacier rock and, under swelling, swirling skies, bare-handed earth-chilled carrots from their deep, dark home of black soil.As winter approached, brave, hungry deer foraged near where I, just moments before, had split the night's fire logs. Soon, thoughts of the day's last warmth led to a knowing sense to ready against winter's way.*******The road to Shiloh witnessed brother killing brother. That harsh-weather battle was brought to life on my parents' Magnavox by worn, red Civil War records, usually during winter months when nature forces families into new habits. Even the slightest Canadian wind plugged our home's only route to the outside, a strategically fashioned tunnel from the front door through layers of a day's snow. We lived for months in an ice cocoon.Outside roamed polar bears and I explored the North and South Poles and maintained camouflaged snow-forts for protection from Attila the Hun.Once a large wildcat was frightened off our roof and leapt overhead and into the night.My first kiss ever was a winter one, a stolen peck as we kids skated over snow-ice in the ditch. As first kisses go, it was only memorable in that my whole grade knew about it by morning. I didn't kiss a girl again for seven years.It was a time when imagination was your best friend.It was a time when nature allowed you to be whatever you couldn't be at home. You spoke with her, cried and cursed with her. You were never alone, never in need, in a season when the land lay still.The snow was warm.******* There was never a spring I didn't like. It was a time to play ball, a time to emerge from woolen clothes.I wanted to be in school to feel that unique anticipation of getting out.Bikes were oiled, storm windows removed, smiles returned and sore bones soothed.On my hill, spring is master of the senses and forces me to love her.There is sweetness all around.Colors hug the land.Each flower, each petal so delicate in first bloom you must tiptoe through their fields to protect them.Horses graze on fresh dew and grass. Buds and branches reach for sun.A warm, inspiring wind arrives from paradise.Butterflies dart as slow lightening.For a time, there is no winter of life.Each day now, I arise anew.And there is no heaven beyond the smell of lilacs in the springtime.
