Spring

The Winter Of The World, XXII.

After the war, the season is spring:

pre-dawn rain;

glittering landscape;

growing warmth;

vanishing mist;

breeze-ruffled pools;

intensely green grass;

blue forget-me-nots;

changeless pines;

shaking willows;

new leaves on birches;

cloudless sky;

sun, wings and song;

moonhorn bull, cows and calves;

red coats and gleaming crown;

bolting hares;

flying pheasants;

questing bees and dragonflies;

eddying air;

odours of earth and river;

Donya basking naked on a flat stone jutting into the Stallion;

rock glowing against skin;

minnows above pebbles in the river;

lulling current;

a letter from Josserek, beginning at the bottom of the page.

Poul Anderson's descriptive passages are long and detailed and we like to summarize them. Four senses in this one.