The Tenderness of Spring

"Well may the tender buds attract us at this season, no less than partridges, for they are the hope of the year, the spring rolled up. The summer is all packed in them."

Thoreau's journal entry
for Jan. 12, 1855.

Today in Hillsdale, on this first day of April 2007, the hope for the year blossoms everywhere.

Our spring and its tender buds gracefully "unroll" — revealing the promised bounty of summer to come.