I come to Caribou ­to look for that first flower of spring.

Caribou, with its gentle grassy hills, is this place where a town thrived years ago, and now there is only a faint hint of a main street and some rock foundations. Above, close by, are the snowy peaks of the Continental Divide.

Here, it seems to be the top of the world!

Here, where the wind moves softly, lifting my hair with its gentle fingers.

Here, where I can hear the quiet surround me, calming me.

Here, where the smell of the earth is like the dinner you’re hungry for, and you can never get enough of. Breathe it in, drink it in.

Touching the dry grasses and plants, I know that they will soon lean to the ground and lie down to go to sleep. I know they will disappear and be covered by a new generation of lively growing plants.

Where are the babies? There, I lean down to see the green of the tiny new plant….then, more, over there. They don’t want to be known, yet. They want to still protect themselves from the cold and snow and ice that might still return to the land.

But the sunshine is liquid, and I am full of the hopefulness of finding spring and one of its first signs, the pasque flower.

As I walk up the hill, I see only brown and tan and gray, the signs that the winter doesn’t want to let go of its wonderful time it had up here at the top of the world, when it was in control of everything.

I look afar. I survey the high hill where I walk now. I want to see the special flower.

And I almost give up.

But wait! Look! There it is! I go to where the flower is. Its subtle purple blue colors sing to me, a song that melts me. It greets me as an old friend that I thought I had lost.

It is proud, it is vivid, and it is perfect.

I know, now, that spring has come to the top of the world.

—Betsy Buck