Came late, evening last, a sweet storm. Our Mayday tree, now fully sleeved in white blossoms, swayed in the chill breeze, while, within the perfumed canopy, chickadees in pairs ascended branch to branch, never quite finding the correct place to land. Those very birds used to spiral down and take seeds from your hand on Saturday mornings. And though you first brought the tree home small and skinny in the backseat of your car, today, a truck would struggle to carry it away.
At long last, the low prairie flowers have burst from the tan soil: blue phlox, yellow draba, white tufted daisy. Beyond our prairie, royal blue clouds rolled-over to reveal green underbellies when they reached yet-snow-tented Elkhorn Mountains. When they fell, the first raindrops turned the soil gold where they struck, and the last flags of blue sky soon smelled of earth.
Today, I struggle to remember the everyday details of carrying on, but I am trying. The birds should be hand-fed on Saturday. The houseplants require watering on every other Sunday. White clothing should wash only with other whites and pants go into the washer inside-out but dry as you wear them. In July and August I will water the Mayday tree with an open hose just as the sun begins to rise. If rain comes then, the storms will smell of stone and wood and the incessant heat of summer will turn the green leaves red. Maybe, by then, I will learn not to look back at the bay window to see if you are watching.
--Mitchell Hegman
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