Spring

I felt like it was coming, not through buds breaking open, but through a softness in the air, like a soft napkin forgotten on the chest of an old icon. No one announced it not the wind, not the birds, not the old woman at the corner window, threading her days together with a broken needle. This spring has no footsteps, no voice, only the faint scent of resin and something holy that’s already turned to ash. I asked my mother if God still has seasons. She looked at me, then at a flower in the window that hasn’t bloomed in years. “I think He lost them,” she said, “or keeps them locked inside, like letters He can’t bring Himself to open.” And I understood: not all springs bring life. Some arrive only to teach us how to stay alive without shining, how to die without vanishing. A blackbird watched me with the eyes of a child who once saw too much light and now fears the sun. And I said nothing, like a prophet without a mountain, carrying a single line pressed against my ribs: It won’t be long before the grass learns how to sing about us.