Springtime in Charlottesville

On an 80 degree day,
if you had the patience,
you could watch the forsythia
and the Bradford pears
turn from yellow and white
to green by the hour.
On some trees the new leaves
finally push the dead leaves off.
Most let go in the Fall
and wait naked for the new ones
to paint the sky
with their feathery brush strokes.
The cherry blossoms are
round balls of flowers up close,
a solid burst of light pink
against the blue sky
when you drive by them quickly.
Not like the layered lace of the dogwoods
that will come a week or so later
or the lavender lines of the red buds
that came the week before
drawn on the edge of the woods
of the still bare tall trees.
A bank of perfectly spaced,
blue violet periwinkles
alive with the hum of bees.
The earth shows us resurrection
every Spring
to remind us it happened then
and can happen again
in our lives if we let it.