Spring, Finally

I will no longer silence myself. If I am not heard, it will be the world itself deciding so.

I knew Spring once, but I stopped speaking. Funny, I must have thought the summer was implied. But it wasn’t, and that spring of mine faded without resolution, compressed petals falling clenched. And, as it wasn’t the season for foliage, what did fall found no audience. Oh hints of blooming, I relied too much on the context of youth.

It’s less that what I produced was not seen, and more that what I started to make was not seen through. I silenced myself before giving the world a chance to listen. I attributed that self-silencing to everything beyond me. But, on final count, the blame falls only here, like a spring rain in a city with its mouth closed by concrete. It was I who shoved the roots and buds together, so tight that not even a seed could fit between them.

But still, any forthcoming summer would not be out of order. Oh late saving grace of a chronology only stalled, not shuffled. The right flight, long delayed, is still far more useful than boarding the wrong one on time and finding yourself, at its conclusion, somewhere utterly foreign, for which your passport is not valid, waiting only in detention until eventual removal.

Oh Spring, finally you’ve reminded me of what I have yet to do. I hope you will not judge my slow, shy steps too harshly. Anyways, if you’re honest with yourself, you’ll admit you’ve procrastinated in coming this year too. (Perhaps there’s a little bit of New England in my becoming too.)

Spring, I accept your invitation. How wonderful to discover that, as the flowers open, so too do doors. No longer ignoring this weight on my branches, I understand more and more that your promises can only be kept in direct sunlight. To come out again before the world, with an opening not choreographed by the reputation of the season, just dancing to the same music, giving the appearance, naturally, of Spring and I finally in lockstep.

What was once silence now, to remain so, must be silenced. Oh God, we pray with no audience in sight. How much less faith is required to present our own words to the visible world. If nothing else, I pray that my own prayer may be audible. I speak to myself, but will now make sure to do so also in the vicinity of others. This is how I will find an audience. They will be near because they share something with me, and thus my speaking becomes intelligible. My words to myself are intercepted, and so I am spared accusations of insanity.

This time it will be up to the world to decide not to listen. I will no longer make that decision for it.

In the spirit of the season, and with the assurances of my speaking, why don’t you susbcribe?