Listen to “Longhope – Edit” (Erland Cooper)
I still remember the snow, the slick ice, the shovel in my hand on Saturday morning. I remember my breath before my eyes, white and puffy, thick with cold, blending into the snow banks, the sidewalks, and the clouds. I remember rubbing the pink from my fingers, from my nose; I remember telling my husband that it was as if my bones were cold and would not warm. Do you remember? Do you remember too well?
I have felt the winter.
When the snow melted I did not mourn; I mourned only when, in March, the sun was hot and blinding, returning like a cheating lover, and I whispered to it that I did not want such heat.
I cannot take such whiplash.
Sometimes, my cat sits on the windowsill in my bathroom, tiger-striped fur in lion’s shape, all eight pounds of her, watching the birds. I watch with her, tucking my elbows into the corners of the sill, chin in my hands, the cold morning kissing my sleeping skin. She looks at me. I look at her.
“It is May,” I whisper.
The trees began first, bright green spheres of new life covering finger-like branches that had worn death for months. This is the story; it has always been the story. I exited the highway and there were yellow blooms—buttercups—along the off-ramp, a welcome party to Zeeland singing of sunlight. Tulips, red as cherries, blush as strawberries, yellow as spring, waving on tall stalks in a wind that now feels warm. I watched a robin, puffy red chest and all, bathing in a pond yesterday.
In March, I received news I felt I didn’t have the strength to bear. The winter was long. It was bitter this year. Wasn’t it?
And behind our beloved ramshackle rental is a muddy driveway; nothing grows in its trampled presence. Car tires are unkind. So only the squirrels, and perhaps my cat’s beloved birds, perhaps the robin, knew—watched—as the rain watered soil I thought was barren: a hyacinth, purple and blue and just as long as my finger. A sister daffodil, butter yellow and confident, reaching to kiss the spring sun.
It is May, they whisper. This is the story. It has always been the story.
