Spring

I heard it again

for the first time in a very long time,

through cheap earphones

while walking over uneven ground,

wind clattering against longstanding trees,

green shrubs with spikes and yellow flowers

dancing like flames.

At full volume it enveloped me.

I immediately felt like I was four

and forty-four and ninety-four.

Like I wished the particles

of energy that made me could be returned

to the earth on which they trod.

Like uncertainty and nuance and fragility

were the only definite. Solidity.

I thought of you and how knowing you

had become so intrinsic and important and

made me feel so strongly and so deeply and so truly

while at the same time feeling my extraordinary

insignificance within this vast expanse of

everything.

I thought of your smile and your laugh and the way tears

fell down your soft cheeks.

and I felt tears fall

and make tracks around my mouth to my chin.

I heard it again

for the first time since I was very young,

and I feel like I am there,

very young.

And I am here, not very young and not old

and I feel your warm hand in mine.

And I hold tight. Tighter than I should.