After A Long Winter

Up earlier than usual. The air is calling.

 

Spring air is different from winter air.

 

Tree branches are serrated with red bud teeth.

 

Later, they grow chartreuse fuzz, making pale green auras in the sun.

 

Summer leaves will be dark, shading, but spring leaves let the light through.

 

Spring trees glow in the daytime, spreading translucent¹ canopies².

 

The birds are out, racketing their news from bush to branch. Cats are still curled up on fire escapes. They are in no hurry to get up in the cool morning air and they know it will warm up later. They are watching the birds. They can wait.

 

The air is clear, clean cool. The smells are tiny smells, little whiffs of green, a ribbon of brown mud, the blue smell of the sky. Midday is mild enough for short sleeves. I eat my lunch outsider, sitting on a warm brick wall. The breeze lifts my hair and riffles the edge of my skirt. I have to squint³. Everything tastes better.

 

Until today I had been too huddled⁴ in my winter coat to notice the quiet coming of flowers. Suddenly, daffodils smile in my face, parrot tulips wave their beaky petals⁵, and fragrant⁶ white blossoms are pinned to dogwood trees like bows in a young girl's hair.

 

The evening is soft. I need my thin jacket.

 

It's still light out when I walk home from the Metro⁷.

 

I could walk for hours.

 

Like a kid playing street games with her friends, I don't want to go in.

 

When I went to work this morning, I left my windows open.

 

Spring came in through the screens while I was gone.

 

It's as if I had used a big sliver⁸ key and rolled back the roof like a lid on a sardine⁹ can.

 

The indoors smell like the outdoors.

 

It will be like lying down in the grass to sleep.

 

The sheets are cool. The quilt is warm.

 

The light fades outside my windows. This weekend, I think I'll wash my car.

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