Praise Song for a Spring I Was Not Alive to See

On the first day of spring, I won’t think of flowers or greening leaves. I will think of something I have never actually seen: my grandmother as a young teacher. She is walking to school—a straight shot down a red dirt road and then a turn that takes her through the graveyard next to the church. My mother and my uncle, younger than I can hardly picture to myself, are running ahead, laughing, but the little dog is beside my grandmother, walking. The sky is blue, for of course the sky is blue. More birds than I have ever heard, even in springtime, sing from the fields and from the tree line that sections the land into fields. The sun is shining on my grandmother’s hair, browner than it ever was during the many years we lived together on the same Earth. The sun shines, too, on the stack of books she carries in her arms, and on the golden fur of the dog who will spend all day under her desk, waiting to walk her home again.

So many birds are singing and singing and singing.