Spring!

Jonquils have tubular leaves and several blooms, these are the daffodils.

This is what he said on his way to the car.

We’ve forgotten the name of the tiny purples scattered like a carpet of stars from a great hand, clustered throughout the yawning lawn and tucked into nooks of shadow.

Tony’s in the back field, churning up the green. I hear his rattletrap tractor clanking behind the trees when I haul the last bits of wood in, anticipating the roller coaster weather.

Short sleeves yesterday, snows tomorrow.

The story won’t come, but here comes everything else — the purples and the yellows, the green and the hovering pink haze that fringes the copse at the base of the broad yard.

The knot of ladybugs alive in the window corners. The wild insistent wind throwing the wide front doors open again and again, announcing the news.

Spring!

Here comes whatever Tony pushes into the fertile back field.

Here comes the sun and the wind and the leftover snow shaken from the thrown cape of winter, surprising us after the teasing warmth.

And the rains. Today the steady gentle rain to mud up the ground and push up the blooms. The pregnant swell of spring, the pulse of waiting.

Squill.

The tiny purple stars — he has remembered that it’s called squill.