Loving Kansas

Today, the sky was impermeable—as though while we slept the world was wrapped inside a pussywillow. From horizon to horizon, a gentle silvery fluff covered our heads and all the light was filtered through it.

There were no shadows because the sun didn’t shine. I knew it was out there, lighting up our little edge of the universe, burning nuclear, dangerous, vital. But in here, this spring day, before the green and the heat and the brilliant sunshine of summer, came a pussywillow glow on brown lawns and bare trees.

You can pick any time of year to begin again. Every point comes round again and makes a new year, however you count. Mine, for now, is the vernal equinox, when day and night are even, and spring is on its way. This is my new year, my begin-again, my new moon, my fresh start. This is my breath of fresh air, my finish line and starting block—this—here and now.

It’s a part of the year that is fleeting and may seem inconsequential. The birds aren’t yet chirping, the colors haven’t yet arrived. In fact, there is almost no color at all. It’s like Dorothy’s Kansas, the place you begin and end from, the place you leave in search of something better, the place you return to after the storm.

[2004]