Spring

It's the sounds I've missed,
The trill of frogs from the pond,
The wild conference of birds mismatched, singing over one another
all at once,
The sound wind makes when it has leaves to blow,
the snow transformed into drops, warm enough to be rain again.

And the smells.
Winter has none.
Spring smells.
The salt of the ocean,
the stink of the hidden earth,
under leaves left.
It smells like spring, she'd say,
when I thought she was too small to know
seasons had smell.

And the slop of my steps
on the now bare wet ground,
and the tools uncovered from last fall
waiting in my garden,
and the empty pots
tipped over drunk in the yard,
waiting for new plants to tend.

And the colors,
the vivid greenness
sharp enough
to pierce through the brown leaves left to protect them.
Here I am!
And the peek-a-boo yellow of a bud,
And the warmth of blue,
and the calm of the day ending,
and the pile of snow
each day smaller,
defeated.

What was the cold?
What was it to be inside
with chapped fingers
and dusty houseplants
and narrow pathways shoveled
to the woodpile?
With only a window to watch
the birds sort through the box
of seeds I'd left them.

Frogs
have come from the murky depth,
ospreys circle overhead
and dive into the brilliant water.
There was never winter.
Just a distraction.
For this.