Emergence

As spring makes itself known again on the Gulfcoast, pollen scatters over the city and declares that the most popular automobile color will be yellow for the next few weeks. I find myself stretching toward the sun with the determination of a lily - or an iris - that's waited quietly for the right moment to show my true self to the world.

I am once again alive - purple, red, blue, piercing white. I flutter in the breeze that turns me toward each next wonder. Mockingbirds chatter across the branches of magnolias, sounding certain in their call to each other, no hesitation in their communication. A boy and his father hold hands as they walk down the street. The boy is careful to jump over the cracks and the father lifts him slightly with each little hop. A heron stands on one leg in the bayou. Water swirls around him in tiny eddies. I think, "How long he will be there?" He lifts his wings and swoops away, under the bridge and out of my sight.

Leaning against a birch I feel my own contrast with the bark, the earth, and the sky. Inhaling, the bright blue of the early afternoon fills me with a swirling of life that has waited for me patiently for months. The crescent daylight moon catches my eye and welcomes me home.