Waiting for Green...

     It seems that south of us, and west of us, and eastward across the sea, there is a waft of warm returning to the land. So I went outside to see if I could catch a whiff of spring.

     The sun was bright and the last lumps of misshapen snowmen had soaked into the ground, but the grass was still flattened by the weight of winter and was a dismal, dirty brown. The shriveled bronze leaves of the pin oaks had loosened their grip in the gusty wind and were skittering across the pavement like children let out to play. The neighborhood dogs walked past straining at their leads, sensing a change in the eager air. But the year-old nests of sticks and mud hanging in the bare trees were still empty.

     And there was no new green. No creeping, unquiet, springing of green from the ground to dispel the pall of a waxen-eyed winter. All was brown below, but there was a swag of yellow and white in the light, and the sky was a jubilant blue. I came home from my walk with a little more patience under my belt than when I had left. I wandered into the garden to linger a moment and found, to my delight, fingers of green pushing through the soil.

Ah, Spring...there you are.