Tangerine: A Book of Hours

Our lockers, in kindergarten, were distinguished by stickers. My locker had a sticker of a lamb on it.

March came with a swirl of rain water silver. Warmth ticked up a few notches. It's a big month, a sturdy block of days. The image on my Michael Parkes calendar is "Dance of Secrets" -- leopards and ballerinas floating in mid-air.

I have five o-clock shadow. It's kind of scratchy.

There are fuzzy buds on the pussywillow and the beginnings of hyacinths sticking out of the ground. Things are still mostly Winter-tinted, though. Waiting for the equinox, perhaps. Still...the light. You can feel a real change in that.

I remember riding the school bus, in Spring. Looking out at passing houses while the bus rattled and lurched, and rain braided on the windows. Sometimes memories don't feel like they have time in them. They are just there: a still life. A photograph out of context. I remember how that rain smelled -- no real accomplishment, there: I can go outside and smell the same thing, now.

But the two twine.

Memories and associations float, like a rain-streaked window above the road. Like dancers and great cats in the sky. The moments are moving through the last of the White season -- marching toward the Green. Time and recollection.

Hello March.

And happy birthday, Kelli.