Kickass and cruelest month

Kickass, the doorstop dog, does not bemoan the end of the snow, but at least it put a cover over the decayed, debris-laden landscape, not unlike the sheet over a battered corpse.  So from now on, starting with this first day of Spring and running through green-up, which doesn’t even get started until the “cruelest month” of April is in the rear view mirror, we are treated to views of the Earth as planetary landfill.  From his hilltop lookout, the keeper sees down into the village, at the individual houses amid the leafless trees, and he thinks about the people who live in them and how they all must join him in greeting the “cruelest month.”   Somewhere down there is a house that was gutted by a winter fire and another where the occupant fell on the ice and died in his driveway. The leaves will come eventually to hide it all behind a green screen, and dim the unsavory winter memories.  Kickass joins the keeper to announce: “Come on, cruel month, lets get on with it.  You don’t intimidate us because we will survive you, and we know about that glorious blossoming show that always follows.

(See billstokesauthor.com for more Kickass and news of the novel MARGARET’S WAR.)