April 5
The bees graze cream-colored bells, the budding trees behind stretching brave branches to the open sky. Sunlight guides my path through shadow of holly tree and towering pine. Bare hydrangeas just beginning to leaf stark limbs stand sentinel. The mossy carpet is soft beneath my winter feet; pine needles and brittle twigs scatter my way. The bay is cold against the sun-warmed sand, gray-green and cut by too many waves. Broken shells and perfect ovals of stone litter the shore. The bird song never stops. The sun touches everything it sees.
Nothing can stop plants in the springtime, a master gardener once told me. Soon, the green will explode, chlorophyll like blood pulsing through stalk and stem. I want to do nothing but watch the spring come, the buds open, and the leaves multiply.
Once, I turned my face from the spring, unbearable rage and grief damning every flower. Now, I submit as the sunlight tips my chin ever upwards, allowing the rays to caress my skin, welcoming the silent threat of too much light and too much heat. My womb is once again empty, and my breasts are filled with milk. Gabriella’s mouth tugs gently as she nurses in her sleep, her breath a soft echo to the timid hush of breeze.
The air is too rich with oxygen; the morning is too bright with light. The earth is blinking sleep-filled eyes, waking from dreams of snow and long nights. I want to sleep and run and cry. I want the sunlight to touch every part of my skin. The joy is so deep it hurts. The gratitude bursts from neuron like a spring newly cleaving the earth’s crust. Her absence still cuts a gaping hole but emptiness no longer fills it.
It is all too much. This day is too much. In sleep, there is healing. Gabriella nurses at my breast. Cecilia plays with her big brother in the sunlight. And Peter watches them, a steady presence at my side, deep anchor to my heart.
The sun is too strong for early spring. I stand fixated beneath its heat, the menace of burn creeping like bubbling needles across my cheeks, my nose, and my shoulders. How can the sun give so much life and drain so much energy? I think too much about how my energy is lessening, is being poured cup by cup into my children, out of my body and out of my brain. Again and again, I refill that cup with sleep, with bountiful food, with prayer, with loving Peter. We give our lives to our children, and they grow like plants in the springtime. What they give back is so fragile and so beautiful, I sometimes fear to touch it, lest it disappear. They take our energy and give back beauty and truth–those transcendent, unbreakable things.
Like the towering pines, our roots dig deep into the earth, drinking invisible life. Days pass, we leaf our branches, and fruit grows from our blooms, swelling with juice and vibrant with color. Still, our roots penetrate; still, our branches climb. The birds are building nests. The breeze off the bay cannot sway our trunks. All is the sound of morning, the smell of sunlight, and the blue, blue sky.
