HIGH COUNTRY SPRING......... .. Lynn Edge, US "...you could see the spring coming each day until a night of warm wind would bring it suddenly in one morning." —Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast Third week in April. After my mother's death, I make a long postponed journey to Ruidoso, New Mexico with hopes that snow still covers the sacred mountains of the Apache. I live on the Coastal Plains of Texas where snow rarely falls and land stretches flat for miles. White-capped peaks raise my spirits. At Roswell, a highway chiseled from mountainsides ascends parallel to the Rio Hondo, a sliver of water cutting through the Sacramentos. A variety of trees lines the banks, but I can identify only the cottonwoods. early spring searching the guidebook for one leaf Lines of poplar grow near old haciendas. As if in prayer, their limbs curl upward, but look so lifeless I wonder if they have survived six years of drought. Only infant buds dot apple orchards. A hint of green marks some cottonwoods as survivors. Others stand with blackened limbs. I reach Ruidoso, see the summit of Sierra Blanca. My sorrow lightens. snow-laced mountains in late evening light red glaze Three days later when I drive back down the Rio Hondo, green leaves explode from the poplars. Creamy apple blossoms ripple down branches. Full-leafed cottonwoods shimmer in the afternoon sun, and I feel comforted. snow melting— draped in deep crimson red-leafed plum   return to top of page