The Buddha is Back

When I left on monday there was still snow around the Buddha. In fact, it was only two weeks before that he was completely buried under mounds of snow. He is about 18" and is so heavy that I cannot move him without help. I thought I would never see him again, lost in a field of snow.

The ice is gone on the Hudson and the creek. It was my measure of time this winter, so my new measure became watching the snow melt around the Buddha. I was overjoyed when I saw the top of his head, and the next day his neck....Today was the first day in several months that I have gone to visit him and see how he fared through the winter.

This buddha is very special; I bought him for Larry for Father's day years ago, and hauled rocks and built a little stone wall niche behind him. Nearby are the oriental grasses, which Larry just cut down in preparation for spring. I will miss their golden dried plumes, which rustled in the frigid winter breezes outside my studio door. In another month he will be graced with anenomes which I hope survived the winter. I don't know what will show up in the spring, and my garden is populated with plants that are pretty good about surviving on their own.

It is still dreadfully cold for spring. But the sun is strong, the plants are stirring in the ground. Now that the snow around the Buddha is gone, I will measure time by watching the iris and the lilies poke through the ground, and await the first flowers of spring.