Yellow Bay, Montana

It’s not yet spring, but in anticipation, let’s consider first arrivals. Given the unpredictability of seasons in transition, isn’t it strange that Nature’s opening gambit is not the massive or heavily-armored, but the delicate and vulnerable? All I have studied of evolution has not explained why this is so. Year after year, despite temperature swings, in snow or sleet or sudden heat, the catkins shrug off their casings, the leaves unfurl, and the spring beauties appear like fallen stars on the forest floor. Perhaps there is a reasoned explanation, but unquestioning delight is enough for me.