Turning her back to the north and her own footprints, Tessa sighed. What a different view unfolded here. The sky painted a background of clear blue as the sun emerged from behind a fluffy cumulus cloud. At her feet the bare ground gave way to mud as solar warmth penetrated the earth. Further down was a hazy suggestion of green as the plants of the field lay tentative fingers of growth. Not yet trusting its full growth to the fickleness of weather, nevertheless the heartier plants ventured forth. Tessa breathed deeply, savoring the smell of earth warmed by the sun. Closing her eyes she worshiped Sol like a sunflower tracking his path across the daytime sky. Her breath picked up a melody and before she realized it, she was dancing on the ridge, arms outspread, calling down the spring. As she moved, a torrent of words demanded their place in the sun, ready to fill the skeletal branches she had built so painstakingly during winter’s quiet graces, flooding onto the pages of her ever-present notebook like spring’s melt overflowing the stream.

The song in her heart took flight. The promise of the coming spring was etched on the hillside. A confidence bubbled up in her that her words, too, would finally leave their mark on the landscape. Her spring was coming.