Spring has arrived.  We are apparently saving daylight, (saving it from what, I am tempted to ask) and finally, we are past the threat of snow.  The boxwood in our front yard have begun to release their pungent, sandy smell, the daffodils have broken through the cold soil, and the tulips want to test their own strength.  But this has been a stormy, windy, and cold spring, and the seasons have yet to be reconciled.   A warm spring seems but a ways away.         

A Way Away

                 By A.R. Ammons, Sumerian Vistas

Some spring thunderstorms, blunderingly

following on thaws, are so breezy

they get an old leaf

up that falling into updrafts

 

can’t get down:

the wind will, leaping

 

out of held moil, lift

the leaf higher than did any

 

tree

and the leaf in the chancy

 

currents will wobble

like a butterfly

 

and gravity will seem to lose

trace of it, and it will

 

angle up till wandering off you

forget to notice if it ever lands.

In anticipation of spring’s warmth but with a nod to its vicissitudes, I am making mushur dal with baby spinach.  Souplike, comforting and sprinkled with the bright green leaf that is almost here.

Red Lentil Soup with Baby Spinach or

Mushur Dal with Palong Shak

1. Make mushur dal with nigella seeds.  If needed, see Humble Beginnings for specifics on how to make a simple mushur dal.
2.  Add handfuls of fresh baby spinach.  Simmer for a few minutes until spinach is wilted.
3. Serve with rice.