Some time in between

Neither mid winter nor its end. But some time in between. The almost-turn of the seasons when the chalk tracks thaw; when the lichens bloom their pallid crusts in broken trails down beaten asphalt roads. But for a coat of shrill morning frost the land lies raked and naked; empty and waiting.  And brittle sunshine.

And when it shines how it glows from the brume of bitter sapphire and burning white mist, stroking her cheek with spring’s warm whispers, nourishing her with the smell of green apple skin and cold, rough-white cotton.

And blessing the celandines that line the pinched ditches; gilding the common moss in the tumbling, wobble-tooth walls; beguiling and seducing new life with its early innocence, drawing up the crocus and sabre-stalked tulips through hard clay and into the soft green guileless fronds of fuzzy-grass lawns.

And though the wind still hugs her back, pinches her waist with chill fingers, tethers her neck and shoulders with trembling, curling cold, she believes in an apricot summer when the sun will hold her hand, pull her along and around; lead her to an orchard of branches, some bleeding with sap that smells of warmed amber, others heavy and bent with blowsy, blushed fruit.

Then the sun will embrace her, lower her gently onto crumpled mole-milled earth, lay her head on day-old grass and and dry velvet moss.

And then a lilt from a tepid breeze;

And simple moments later she will open her eyes, smiling August’s smile as radiance sweeps her into a sky of Virgin Mary blue.