A BURGEONING
I walk in sunshine and promise, limbs lengthening and loosening. This is what I see: the tight beginnings of anemone-purple guelder-rose blossoms, the fine and furled celadon fingernails of new lilac leaves, sharp burgundy shoots of peonies thrust above the soil. Tiny clustered peridot pearls along the whip-thin branches of spirea, a fat white-bellied magpie high in a tree; another bouncing over the lawn. A hedge blushing green, speckled here and there with the plump grey-balled bodies of chickadees cheerily chirping. A conclave of crocuses, communing. Rounded cabochon leaves covering the bank of the creek; water shimmering as it slides...