Slowly, I Return

to greening. Each year, this particular time in the academic calendar has the power to flatten me with exhaustion, and when I slowly return to the world, I am each year shocked by its greening. It was a nice change today to set aside my schoolwork and just sit and look out my window, where the little tree that shelters me has leafed out most fully.

I have taken the day off. The cardinals sing intermittently, and the house next door, recently sold after a year on the market, is undergoing some work involving power tools, while the sun lets loose its wide-awake.

Words, as you might tell, are cluttering behind my tongue again, and I am impatient for May 16th, the day that marks the end of my responsibilities at school.