Spring was deemed official with March’s passing equinox. But April is when the seasonal tide becomes an overpowering flood.

I love watching the sere gray landscape stir and reawaken after its long winter’s sleep. Through the elemental alchemy of rain and sunlight and increasing warmth, the old earthly magic renews and restores.

Buds swell, leaves materialize and unfurl. Grass greens and swiftly grows lush.

Brooks abruptly run full and loud, chattering an energetic message of change, their burbling a lively, surgent song of the season.

Our mid-winter doubts are laid to rest. Hopes and expectations personified. Promises kept. Spring fulfills, our faith and confidence in time’s reparation proves justified.

A few weeks ago you could ramble woodlands and overgrown fields and see only a dull monotone of brown and gray. Now those same places exhibit a patchwork of color as early wildflowers emerge to spangle meadows and forested hillsides with ephemeral rainbows.

Purple cress, marsh marigold, crested iris, wood-betony, Columbine, trillium, wild ginger, twinleaf.

Their hues entrance the eye while their names delight the tongue: toothwort, anemone, isopyrum, celandine, hyacinth, phlox, cinquefoil.

Sometimes their names sound so old-fashioned it’s as if they were part of one of those venerable hill-country ballads you sometimes hear played by musicians who’ve gathered with their stringed instruments around a campfire: wake robin, bellwort, larkspur, hepatica, henbit.

On occasion the echoes sound Biblical: Jacob’s ladder, Solomon’s Seal, blue-eyed Mary, Jack-in-the-pulpit.

Now and then they’re simply found poetry: shooting star, Miami-mist, coltsfoot, pussytoes.

The spring angler out surveying his precious smallmouth waters is especially prone to wildflower distractions.

On a stretch of Twin Creek, there’s a long, parklike glade that parallels one of my favorite sections of stream. I dream about this stretch often during winter’s darkness. And I can’t wait to visit once spring rolls around.

But what draws me to the place as much as the fishing — which can be excellent — is the breathtaking wealth of glorious bluebells that thrive in the glade’s rich soil.

My mid-winter dreams and visions regularly include those showy bluebells.

Other streamside spots have their own wildflower charms.

There’s a damp floodplain corridor on Todd’s Fork which turns into a shining yellow treasure every April, with carpets of waxy buttercups. One hillside along Wolf Creek sports its own distinctive yellow fanfare with ranks of nodding trout lilies. And then there’s that secluded hollow on Seven Mile where the white blossoms of bloodroot appear as carelessly scattered stars.

The list is almost endless.

An incredible full-acre patch of large white trillium that blooms in a bit of old-growth woods beside Paint Creek. A small meadow on Greenville Creek which annually turns blushing pink with crowds of spring beauties. A dandy bass hole on the upper Stillwater practically rimmed with Dutchman’s breeches.

I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve been stopped in my piscatorial tracks to savor the adjacent show.

The lovely bluets in a glen of the Little Miami. The blue-eyed grass of unsung Rattlesnake Fork.

A stream fisherman might eat his lunch while seated upon a grassy bank sweet with violets. Or under a rocky cliff where trailing arbutus pleases his eye with their clusters of delicate pink flowers, while their spicy fragrance fills his nose.

Nor is it only wildflowers that distracts the angler’s attention from his avowed purpose — unless he’s far more focused and single-minded than I’ve ever managed…or wanted to.

Spring is the season of birdsong. A grand and stirring symphony that begins well before sunup and sets the woods and fields to ringing.

True, these feathered songsters are indeed piping for reasons other than the wayside angler’s entertainment. Serious procreative duties compel the boisterous males to find a perch and sing their lovely arias. Territories must be established, mates attracted.

But I also suspect we don’t understand the singing motivation of birds quite as thoroughly as we so authoritatively profess. Can anyone say for certain there’s no delight involved? Do we really know for a fact the cardinal or oriole whistles his melody without a whit of seasonal ebullience?

Frankly, I don’t believe that for a moment!

Only mankind in his arrogance sees himself as the single creature worthy or capable of joy. Hard science can only take you so far toward understanding the mysteries of life. The intransigent researchers will never have all the answers.

Sometimes you have to lift your eyes from the textbook and look around — to observe with your mind, see with your heart. My intuition purely scoffs at the notion that April’s splendid birdsong is nothing beyond a cacophony of biologically programmed noise.

I’ve heard too many enthusiastic robins to ever be convinced otherwise. Paused too often to listen to the melodies of passing warblers.

I can’t begin to count the days a’stream when the meditative vespers of a white-throated sparrow have tugged at my heartstrings. Oft times, the soft, sweet song of the white-throat is almost more than I can bear — yet one I hope to hear it every time I go afield.

Should those familiar notes come purling from a bankside thicket, I’m apt to lay my rod aside and simply listen — transfixed by a song so pure and unadorned, so achingly beautiful, that it invariably washes into my weary mind and fills my soul with hope.

For me, April’s greatest gift is an annual reminder of life’s joy and holy wonderment.

Reach Jim McGuire at [email protected].