I am trying to invent a word for the beginning of the thaw. Melt, no. Dissolve, too scientific. It is the line between hard freeze and full-on melt. Not the done deal that is thaw, the don't go out on the ice form of thaw or even the thinking-about form I better thaw the chicken or we won't have anything to eat for dinner thaw (I am sure this is called something official, present perfect or pluperfect or one of those rote terms I completely ignored in Mrs. Flye's seventh grade English class because I was reading Lost Horizon hidden inside my grammar text book and all that sentence diagramming seemed pointless). Anyway it is time. There are goldfinches in the tangle of wild rose bushes behind our fence and we saw a bee on Saturday and somewhere, everywhere, the ice is letting go of itself, the crystals are not so pointy and hard-nosed about it all and the peregrine has snatched the green-winged teal. Meaning, it's a crossing-of-the-fence time, the teal crossing the line between being in the here and now and whoosh! the hereafter or never again. On to the next thing, wing, beak, sky, a nice chicken dinner on a Monday night.
