It’s that time of year when, sadly, I must report, not write, despite what’s going on around me. Given a choice, I always prefer writing to reporting. There’s a big difference. One not everyone understands.

The time is right for writing. Perfect, in fact. The early spring has produced a rare overlap of beautiful colors from the magnolia, forsythia, Japanese maples, apple, quince, bleeding hearts and Quanson cherries simultaneously adorning my yard in their full splendor. The rhubarb and asparagus are ready for their first cuts, and even the lilacs beneath the magnolia are sporting tiny purple blossoms while many full magnolia flowers still ride the cold, blustery wind on their flimsy shoots; very unusual, first time in 13 years on my property that the lilacs have shown color before the magnolia tree turned green, its scattered pink tulip petals rotting on the turf below. So here I sit, space-heater purring behind me, spot-heating, refusing to start the wood stove or tip up the thermostat for this cold snap that’ll soon turn warm.

Speaking of pink, how about that Full Pink Moon in the sky, the one I promised weeks ago was due for opening week of turkey season; weather permitting, would likely stimulate aggressive daybreak gobbling from boss toms? When I left work Tuesday night, I could feel that bright moon behind dense stormy clouds high in the southern sky, its filtered light illuminating downtown Greenfield, casting a favorable hue over the uplifting facelift bordering the town common. Miraculously, by the time I arrived home, some three miles north and west, and stepped outside to run the dog, the moon shone brightly in a clear, starry hole framed by billowy gray clouds, akin to a large floodlight peeking through a wide, unruly smoke ring, the sphere sneaking through leafing streamside maples and reflecting off a Hinsdale Brook eddy. The sight and sound spun me off into reflection and introspection as they often do. Call it lunar influence, which again infected me, brightening a cold, gray week in a suddenly clear midnight sky; as though the clouds intentionally opened to remind me the moon was there, looking over my shoulder, coddling me till the sky cleared, the air warmed.

Gray, overcast days and full moons might signal trouble for some. Take a friend I know who recently got into a turkey-hunting jam that’s haunting him. This good, honest man now finds his fate in the hands of the government, the law, which doesn’t often display empathy for honest mistakes. Maybe someone will intervene and inject some fairness into the authorities investigating this sorry case. Perhaps they’ll understand that the way the illegality played out clearly identifies it as an error, a twist of fate, not a crime. I hope so. The man deserves a break, nothing less. But the people calling the shots probably won’t care, seldom do in such cases. Sometimes judges and juries or officers of the law must understand the gray, not just black and white. They must be willing to explore the spirit of the law, the reason it was enact ed, not just the fact that a rule has been broken. At least that’s the way I see it, not from the rigid law-and-order, red-white-and-blue perspective; my view more philosophical, not cut and dried as prosecutors and cops often demand these unforgiving days.

Remember, this opinion’s coming from a taxpaying citizen who just Tuesday appeared for jury duty in Orange, was seated and promptly yanked by the prosecutor for the third time this millennium. I guess men who reason like me are not meant to be jurors in 21st century courtrooms, even in a liberal state. And to think I now sit passing judgment at my desk, seated on a long-ago discarded walnut chair from the Hampden County Court. Is it irony or coincidence? You decide.

But, like they say, life goes on. Then you die. I guess when you think of it, we’re all just passing through a place much bigger and more complex than any of us.

Fact is, like most, I wasn’t eager to serve on that jury, anyway. Fancy that. For once a member of the majority, far from silent.