Early spring in is not a friendly thing, as I sit looking at the garden, the yard, the field. All is dead, old looking, and dripping, soaking wet. The grass all around is tan, colorless, waiting for new life. Scars of bright, burnt-red color show painfully where grass was ripped away in the rain, leaving the bald face of clay earth. Lavender bushes stretch their now-lifeless stalks towards where the sun once shown, some other, long time ago.  Chive plants still have now gray and dried flower heads, drooping to the ground, as if they know that they will soon be part of the soil. Thorns, blood red, and branches, twisted and tangled, are all that is left of the rose bushes, even the rose hips have fallen to the muddy ground some time ago.

And a flock of birds flies close overhead, sudden and dark against the overcast sky. Their wings beat the air alive, like the sound of a far away river, and whipsering, perhaps, of new things to come.