Springtime in Driftless Wisconsin

My wife and I live in a coulee along a drywash, a meager contributor to the Mississippi River and yet a topographical tributary to the Mississippi Valley. We live in shadow until midmorning, when the sun finally appears to resume its work on spring, as an artist arrives late to her workshop.Riley, our three-year old golden retriever, revels in spring the way a child wanders awe-struck through a toy store. His senses are my entrance. His nose twitches to a new odor, his ears perk to a new sound, and I look toward their origin. Unlike the hollow clatter coming from the vacant streets of winter, sounds have a home in spring. They dwell in the lush construction of new growth.

Two of my three children were born in spring, while the third wedged spring into the midst of a cold January morning. I stood wobble-kneed, draped in a green hospital gown, until a nurse noticed the color of my complexion drifting toward my wardrobe like a startled chameleon, and ordered me to sit down. I sat, dumbfounded, as spring arrived.

A new arrival to this world searches for familiar reference points like a circus visitor in a house of mirrors. The nurse places the tiny traveler in your arms, and their eyes soon find yours, and you can’t leave them.

And so it is springtime in the Driftless area. The sun shines through freshly-minted leaves that hang like mobiles above a newborn’s crib. Each time the wind blows, the mobiles move, and the spaces between them open and close. The sun’s gaze parses into a dozen eyes that open with each breath of wind. I stand, wobble-kneed, transfixed on these eyes of spring.

My knees fixed, I begin walking through the undeveloped canopy still under construction. Last year’s remnants litter the ground, dead and decomposing leaves from which this year’s growth rises. Life has come full cycle, and whatever has been taken in the past, nature has given back.

A buck has etched a scrape into the middle of the logging road, still exercising his territorial rights from last year’s rut. Each time I walk past, the leaves have been pushed aside and strident hoof prints leave their mark upon the barren earth. The marks are linear and cross-hatched, as if signing his primitive intent.

In my last visit, pollen-laden catkins from a nearby birch tree have dropped on the buck scrape. They dropped and scattered and skewed, forming strange hieroglyphics upon the earth. The buck’s best intentions have been overwritten.

Leave it to arrogance to think we can leave our mark. Spring returns to reclaim its dominion, again and again. We are not just fathers of children and owners of land, but stewards of nature, witness to miracles unending. Spring returns to Driftless Wisconsin, resilient, full of promise for the future, laden with gifts from the past.