A different smelling spring–served quite chilled, then warmed quickly,with notes of melting snowsweet and earthy on the nose,this spring has woody undertones:fresh-aged ash, maple, oak, and pine,the neighborhood filled with sawdust fine.
On April twenty-two,two-thousand-thirteen,a cold wind blew,and the snow was mean.And I would guessthat no one would blame usfor just talking about the weather.This April is famous.
Some trees outlive us.Some trees we outlive.And if everything stayed aliveto shade our perfect lives we would have to bethe very first to die.
I had never seen ice like that.I had never seen branches so fatand so many limbs, falling to the ground,so many repetitions of that crack-and-shatter sound.So many trunks and wires and sticksall buried in snow, to add to the mix.
Louder every morning,the birds sing in the trees.They are louder than the chickens,and that puts my mind at ease.And they’re louder than the footstepsthat go across my ceilingand they’re louder than my worries,and that gives me a good feeling.
In these two weeks since I have written,the first warm days of spring have come,and we have spent no little timemaking up for lack of sun.And we have talked until we’ve foundwhere our sameness endsand then we’ve talked until we’ve … Continued
The leaves left from last fallare now not green at all.They chose to staybut died anyway.Why did they choose to stall?