Spring Is Subversive

by Richard Hartwell

Spring is subversive for so very many, insidious even; it slyly stalks out from winter until it leaps full-blown onto fields of wild mustard trimmed on edges with poppies and desert lilies.  Where I live spring is more devious, often tricking roses and fruit trees with warm days, yet nights hovering nearfreezing, lulling blossoms and buds into premature birth and early death, letting those innocents shrivel and drop.

It is difficult to know which is better, if not best: to delay the salvation of spring, often elongated into April or even May, but knowing then that the season is real, not some conjuror’s trick contrived; or, to embrace early signs of spring, allowing resurgent hopes of incarnation, even knowing it is likely a manifestation only meant to tease and titillate desiresf or winter’s early end.

I have lived in lands and climes of both extremes and known the joys of fulsome spring erupting forth into elysian cornucopias, as well aso ther times knowing that winter’s disasters have ended, marked by trickery of first rose buds or nascent plum blossoms; I have been both pleased and tormented by mere tastes of spring in February as well as meals of sated spring in May.

If given choice, I would option for the possible deception of a too-early spring, not wanting to know what is behind the seasonal drapes or the illusionist’s cloak; thus, I await the annual surprise of spring.  Early or late, I anticipate a transformation.