The rise of spring

04/08/80

Spring comes on me like I’m freshly woken and still groggy, the long winter’s stubble clinging to my face in need of a shave, a rough world over which I cannot pass my hand without pain.

The naked branches still shiver in the still cool breeze, as winter refuses to completely relinquish its hold, gone but hardly forgotten, its bitter taste lingering on the tip of my tongue as I ache for the first buds to fill in the spaces left empty on the tree limbs by the cold.

I do not love spring the way I love autumn, even though spring brings rebirth and fall, dying – we deluded by the spread of color we get all at once in the fall, while spring creeps up on us, teasing us with a spattering of color here or there, the purple or yellow of crocuses oozing up from the frozen bodies of dead leaves.

I ache for it to come more quickly, feeling the stir of it inside my bones, the rise of it up my spine, the tingle of it at the tips of my fingers.

But on mornings like this, it comes as a shock, like a face full of cold water, a rude, abrupt awakening that shakes me by the shoulders and reminds me life comes with pain, reminds me – after a long winter huddled inside – that I am still alive.

And I ache for Autumn’s kiss, even though I know deep down it is a prince charming’s kiss that eases me into a sleep I may not awaken from, while spring kicks me in the teeth and wakens me, and makes me search this barren landscape of life for those first few signs of life, the buds that eases from the tips of each branch, a bitter smile grinning down at me, bringing a still chill rain upon my upturned face.