It had been the perfect spring morning, full of rose-colored light, the air as soft as petals after winter’s sluggish passing. The apple trees in the garden were thick with white blossoms, the young cherry trees full of dark purplish buds nearly ready to unfurl. Soon the locust, the linden, the lilacs and chestnuts would burst forth, spilling over with sweet flowers, small, fragile and numerous, saturating the air with exquisite scents. The ethereal perfume of spring. The breath of new life, tender and full of promise, emerging from a ground battered by cold and rain, an earth which just before had been a dire, primordial mud.

Yet, as I stepped out, my buoyant mood began to slip away inexplicably. The warm, gentle air and twittering birds seemed to be mocking me instead. The unusual joy gave way to a familiar gloom.

Sometimes my forgetfulness is rewarded. Sometimes the ice melts. Because sometimes, no harshness exists at all. What may seem as solid and real as the tender buds in the April sunlight now was just a pollen grain of possibility before a brutal winter. Before the harshness swept away the last remnants of summer.

The title of this post was inspired by the artwork I created for it, the images are composed of 5 layers, different photos of spring in the past 5 years.

Text and images by M.P. Baecker © 2018.