When the light is pure and clear, and the sky an unmatched blue,
I walk in silent woods, I squish softly over the gently yielding earth,
The newly-supple earth made wet and heady from the thaw.
I breathe, slowly, tentatively. That ever-present hand rests gently against my chest,
(to steady me? to ready me? to still me in my tracks?)
I breathe deeper, and this hand, this halter slips through me.
My eyes crinkle against the return of the sun, but I cannot, I will not shield them.
The winter has been so long, and so dark, that the crisp, golden glow is welcome
A friend who has gone on a journey, and has so long been away
That their homecoming is like discovering them all over again.
I am discovering all over again…
The thaw brings the exuberant song of returning birds,
Brings mysterious green stirrings under the bed of long-dead leaves,
Brings the perfume of the cleansing rain,
the rushing of the streams and rising of creek waters
and the hope that was never very far away at all.