not the weather

These are days that do not know themselves. Every morning is uncertain; many evenings are confused. The sky may be empty and simple, overflowing with blue and brightness. It may be flat and inscrutable. Or it may be variegated and complex, strewn with color, torn and mended. It is never the same from moment to moment. The air surprises with its stillness, its movement forward, backward or around. It caresses and thrashes, fluctuating wildly between warm and cold, never predictable, never settling. There are buds and pale green shoots uncurling where seeds were planted or where seeds were strewn by chance. These tender lives do not know if they look forward to sunshine or frost, yet they come because it is what they do — they have no choice. There is rain that drenches and snow that sticks.