It’s a warm spring day, the first one in months.
You’re so excited that you throw on your summer clothes and run outside.
The sun hits you in the eyes, you’re stunned, you stumble off the porch.
You right yourself on the bottom step and gingerly step off.
Shading your eyes, you lean back and squint at the sun.
The sun is out, its heat washes over you.
You’re sitting under a tree. You watch the sky brighten. There’s a pale yellow swatch where the grey usually is.
Wisps of clouds are still lingering about; little by little they break and fade.
The tree’s rustling leaves cast an ever changing dance overhead. You feel formless shadows take shape. As they come into being they become aware of each other. Excited that they are not alone they swarm. They mingle. They grow aquainted. And fade back into the formless.
It is hot and you are reclining in the shade.
Your fingers brush through the scrub and dirt. You dig at small roots and grind rough pebbles into your finger tips. You sift moist soil through your fingers. The smell of living earth takes you back to a simpler time.
Sheep graze on the next hill over. The shepherd is a gauzy yellow shape swaying with the wind. It’s amazing that the puffs of sheep don’t float away, somehow they stay anchored to the ground.
It is a weightless summer day and you’re back in Ireland watching sheep.
The shaggy grass tickles behind your knees. You brush it away and there’s a
lady bug sitting on your knee. It’s a red one. A dark red ladybug from childhood—
back when ladybugs were vivid and bold. She opens her wing covers and rejoices about summer and the smell of dirt, about heat and thawing. She jumps into a current and is swept along.
You are in the shade watching ladybugs dance in sunlight.