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Stalking the Vernal Equinox

Before its Arrival, Spring Comes to

by Libby Demp Forrest To everything there is a eeaaon... \ My younger son and I had a late afternoon date on March 20. We went out to stalk the Vernal Equinox, that primal alliance of time and nature when (toy and night are equal in length — when springtime begins. According to The Farmer's Almanac, sprtTTg~Would be arriving at 5:54 p.m. My U-year-old, in the springtime of his life,- and I, in a later season, wanted to discover together what would be«happeni»g out there at 5:56 p.m. We had been to the library and had taken out books on astronomy, natural history and the physical sciences, as well as some almanacs. We read and plotted together and, to be quite honest, I wasn’t at all certain what we were going to find out there at 5:56 p.m. But we were determined : to go looking. FOR SEVERAL WEEKS I HAD BEEN HEARING the frogs singing at night — a gentle, lyrical sound and always one to lift my spirit, as winter recedes. There were somp robins observed in the back yard, hopping.on.the slightly greening grass, and'T was reminded of the childhood poems about Robin Redbreast. And I remembered, too,

the song that swept the classroom asserfiblies when I was a girl, Welcome Sweet-Sprlngtinte. I could hear the young

voices poignantly singing that old melody.

In town on sunlight days, out on the benches along the Mall across from Victorian Towers, the oldsters sat enchanted at the unfolding season. Passing them, from time to time, were young couples, smooching, caught in the em-

brace of love and time.

And. too, there was an occasional young mother, pushing a carriage revealing little more than blanket-atop-btonket atop a wee napping being. That brought a flood of memories, back,to a time when I used to take my two infant sons for springtime walks. There was one many years ago when my now soon-to-be 16-year-old^was taken ' out for his first walk. He was swaddled and bundled and capped and blanketed, and I proudly pushed the new carriage along the streets near our home, showing off to the world what springtime had brought into my life. THERE WERE CONGRATULATIONS AND ADVICE. I had lain my baby on his back for our walk But, one neighbor admonished me; you^e supposed to put babies on their stomachs, she said. I lifted the blue blankets, eventually found toy baby beneath the warm layers, and

turned him over The next neighbor along the way.said she was sure I had borhe a very handsome son. but all she could see was the back of his wooly cap And so it had gone on that now long-ago walk, as I turned my baby around and around every few houses, to please my neighbors’

whims i

As my younger son and I started out for our recent walk to the beach, I remembered that early walk. I stared at the growing boy beside me, anxious to get'to the beach well before 5:56 p.m. •’Come on/Mom, hurry." he said "we don’t want to be late for whatever we re going to

see."

We got to the beach and walked along the shoreline, studying the sunset "Well?’’ my son said "Which way do you think it'll come?" I vwmdered. How does a scientist attempt to formulate the exact moment a sperm intermingles with a ripened egg, when fer tilization occurs? Perhaps it can be done under laboratory conditions, but there's a sequence of m)*terious and uncorrelated events th{it is immeasurable for stalkers of the Vernal Equinox. (Page 12Please) .