March comes in like a lion, and winter begins to overstay its welcome. 'Wintermission' (the winning entry in a 'name that season' challenge issued by the Toronto Star during an unusually balmy January) takes on a new meaning. Environment Canada forecasts colder-than-seasonal weather for at least the next week. The Weather Network suggests the chill may persist until the end of the month.

Tonight is the full worm moon, so named by the Algonquins to mark the reappearance of worms in the thawing soil. The vernal equinox will be on March 21. There will be no worms dancing tonight: I imagine them coiled deep in the earth, dreaming of leaves and grass.

A year ago the roads were clear enough for me to resume biking and (as I wrote here at Reading Toronto), I roared through the city with my teeth bared, biting at the wind. I can taste that wind this morning, the feral grip of the winter pulling away, clawing deep runnels in the soil. There is a strong kite in the hall closet with 500 feet of string, and my desire to fly it at the edge of the lake grows with every sunrise.

But this morning, like yesterday morning and the morning before, I refill the bird feeder, comb static electricity through my hair, and pull on high winter boots for another walk in the snow.

The difference, this morning, is that I can feel things growing under the ice and during my walk am surrounded by halos of birds who have begun to sing again. They have grown impatient, and now so have I.

[Fallen limb image taken by me and used under the aegis of a Creative Commons license.]