How I anticipate Spring, even with believing it’s existence present; the women consuming the streets with fresh, bare legs and scarves atop, fewer layers of clothes, putting the old tennies in circulation, the people are out, most noticeably the couples – everywhere, on each corner: hand in hand, arm in arm, locking lips while waiting for the light, totally inescapable. While talking with one of the painters who live in the apartment below mine, on the front stoop outside, he pointed across the street to the cathedral at the bush beside the door already with blooms of white adorning the green beside it and then we finished our cigarettes to escape the cold and retreat to our respective workplaces. No, Spring is come despite the persistent Atlantic winds bellowing down the avenues forcing the slightly heavier coat and a light scarf. Everyone knows that Spring is arrived, even if a fight against the weather remains or an umbrella to come a few days this week. That doesn’t slow down the quick beat of fresh life, a spirit taking over the masses, a kiss from the wind as she blows across the face, even if bitter, a reminder of the sounds and smells and faces and tastes of spring. “What is poetry? -It is what the early Spring is saying about the deaths of Winter.” A beat, a movement, a change – all the same. A street corner, the caress of the sun beat, a couple dozen faces held high – the Springtime. A turn of the ear for each living thing, a meditation on the colors: green, blue, pink, violet. A hundred more footsteps past irreproachable buildings towering as high as ever, visibly subject to the weather. And what of the life that is enthusiastic about life and enthuses others on or about or inside of life? The weather bears them down too, but not withstanding! For the weather is in our favor soon, if not now. When? But today the rhythms of life continue in their glory as is the only possible day to continue. So as the wind patters down and the layers become fewer, the tennis-shoes pulled out from under the coffee table and the windows remain open in every establishment and apartment, the street-noise echoes further and parties of people gather on rooftops or by fountains running fresh with water or in parks filled with the newly returned colors reflecting the jubilance of those surrounding themselves with them: deep in thought, deep in pollen-season, deep in richness of that that is; the event that comes but once a year – Springtime.
