1/2 Dead Petunias Wear Rouge

There are half-dead petunias growing in the planter pot, on the little table, on my balcony, in the A.
They live with a half-dead verbena, who is also coming back for the season.
My great aunt Marcelle would call these “volunteers,” because they just grow right back of their own accord.

It’s almost like you’re taking attendance on the first day of school—
Verbena?
Present, and also it’s “Verbie.”

That’s what amazes me about spring, which it finally is—thank God.
One minute there’s just sticks—that’s what they say in Vermont. “Stick season.” So I heard it once anyway. But it suits—the world is dead.

Then you lay your head down one night, and when you wake up, the green is peeking from all around.
New purple buds on the rhododendrons.
Green sprouts on the hydrangea twigs.
Bright leaves bursting forth from the hardwoods.

It’s like Mother Nature got out of bed on one lazy Sunday and said,
“I’m gonna put my face on and we’re gonna go out for brunch. Now y’all go get dressed.”

That’s what I think about spring.
The cliché thing is to say, “renewal and rebirth,” and honestly, there’s a place for that, but—
you know what I think?

I like spring because she was brave—because she showed up.

She came out of the cold and the dead and said,
“Let’s go to town,”
putting on her soft pink lipstick with a smack,
while looking in the sun visor mirror from the driver’s seat,
in her best dress.

Renewal?
No—
She’s brave.
She’s strong.

She just wakes up one morning and tells the world,
“Well, that’s about enough of this bullshit. It’s time we got on with it, isn’t it?”

And then she does.
Caps her lipstick, shuts the visor, sips her roadie, and hits the gas.