"Sixty-six times have these eyes beheld
the changing scene of autumn.
I have said enough about moonlight,
Ask no more.
Only listen to the voice of pines and cedars
when no wind stirs."
~Ryomen's Death Poem, Buddhist nun born in 1797

Yesterday I took a walk looking for the signs of spring. Unlike Ryomen, I am not watching for the gifts of autumn but those of its opposite cousin. Meandering along the dirty sidewalks in my neighborhood, I observed the waste of winter. Still frozen piles of black snow revealed many emerging things……countless discarded bottles and cans, cigarette butts, a golf ball, shards of glass and a mirror ripped from the side of a car, a completely frozen squirrel. All these mixed with the leaves of last year's trees, now brown, soggy and clumped in unattractive ways. The poem unfolding before my eyes was not necessarily pretty but it was, in some odd way, filled with promise.

Ryomen's eyes had looked upon sixty-six autumns. My eyes haven't as yet seen so many springs but when I read this poem, sent by a friend, I made a mental note to not take a moment of this springs' arrival for granted. After all, in the grand scheme of things, we are only given so many to behold. Only so many times will my eyes be blessed by the gradual melting of the snow as it runs down our street toward its eventual destination to ride the waters of the great Mississippi. Only so many times will it be my blessing to hear the first birds of spring, to see the green sprouts of plants pushing their way skyward after having slept through the winter months. Only so many times will I be privileged to watch a squirrel (very alive!) run up the limb of the maple tree, a bundle of leaves held tightly in his mouth, as he headed toward his nest.

One spring, I can't remember what year, I realized I had, indeed, missed the whole turning. The days had passed, the buds had appeared, the ice had melted and the water had begun to flow, and I was oblivious to the movement. The trees along the river had gone from invisible to brownish-red, to yellowish-green, finally choosing their own brilliance of color without my noticing.Upon realization of my loss, I still remember the sadness, the regret. I wanted to ask for a cosmic do-over.

But there is no such thing.There is only one spring of 2009. And our work is to watch…..to listen…to be present….to the gift of it all. For the first, the twentieth, the fiftieth, the seventieth, the hundredth time, allowing our very selves to behold these changing days.