Rhubarb Country Cobbler

Spring, how fast, turns summer. Past are May Day and Mother’s Day, soon are June grads in black, June brides in white.

Soon comes Midsummer, our longest day of the year, upside down from the southern hemisphere where right now fall fast turns winter.

Hard-fought from winter, our spring is worthy of remembrance.

Ferns that unfurl with time-lapse speed. The parade of spring color, polished pinks and luminous yellows. A spring snow of delicate cherry-blossom petals. The determined green of just-germinated grass. In turn, magnolia-, plum-, honeysuckle-, lilac-, honey locust-, iris- and peony-scented air.

Tiny puff-ball bunnies whose favored salad bar, we hope, is someone else’s garden. The dog warming herself on the sun-warmed brick, sniffing the fat air. A pair of robins cavorting, ahem, atop a Boston fern. The first day with enough warm, enough cool, for breakfast, lunch and supper outside.

Uniformed little-boy bottoms at-bat, winding up in physical and mental preparation. The winter-pale bodies of neighbor kids running through the sprinkler on the first hot afternoon.

Dads with baby strollers after supper; one mom with a baby stroller, a dog on a leash and a bag for picking up litter. The Pied Piper call, unchanged and unchanging, of the neighborhood ice cream truck.

Yes, spring is worth recalling. So, God willing, shall be summer. And in time and in turn, so shall be the fall and yes, even the winter.