Burst

We were on top of Caesar's Head. Where North and South Carolina meet. Having ascended above the unused potential and naivete of the piedmont, bluegrass radio pinged our ears loud and clear. The car was now parked, and we left the radio for the real music. Symphonies of silence. Just like last year, right at the tail end of the land's hibernation, I was at cold, cloud-covered Caesar's Head. Watching. Sitting in silence at the tutelage of nature, listening for our daily lesson: a stroke of brilliance that is planted in the mind and which blooms ever so gradually in magnificent secrecy.  Watching the sun tear its way through the clouds, shining on wisps of cloud in the valley, climbing up the hillside. As the mist climbed up the valley, the sunlight continued to pour down the far valley wall at the near parallel, lending magnificent relief to the trees that would soon explode. The greater mists were brewing not too far above the far hill and beyond. Many had already begun to break forth. There was more variety of color in the clouds than in the trees and large reservoir that provided Greenville -- where we traveled from -- with fresh water. A fresh, light blue cloud lay to the far left, with a backdrop of heavy, burdened cloud. Far beyond, perhaps as far as Northeast Georgia, large looming clouds burned with the gold of a more direct, earlier-in-the-day light. There was even a wisp directly below us, alone wandering to some unknown location as if lost, unaware of its observers. All of this was short lived. The sun was soon masked again, forced into obscurity. In nature's hibernation and conservancy in her overcast slumber, the sun momentarily stirred her alive, dancing, singing. We caught it and seeds were planted. The days are getting so much longer, and the sun is getting so much stronger. Anticipated joy at what blooms come spring is growing, and will soon burst. The outpouring of excitement and joy of breathing is the least I can give in return for nature's gift of beauty.