Went for a slow walk around the block after the rain. Everything was damp, awake, and I noticed the petals on the cherry blossom had fallen, leaving behind pink clustered stalks, like the fraying edge of cut silk. The low clouds above were reflected in shallow puddles and we came to a patch of bluebells, pushing up in clumps through a flowerbed. There were huge white tulips beside them, over ripe, petals splayed.
A wall that had been thick with ivy all winter had been cleared, and I missed the colour of it, all its shaggy mess. I could still see the little tiny suckers, the fronds that had held the stalks in place, on the pale brick. We walked slowly past a tree trunk with lichen patches that looked sponged on, then another with budded leaves, pink at their bases before unfurling to green, growing at waist height, bursting from the trunk. There was something about this determination, this striving toward life, that struck me.
People nodded hello as they strode along and we kept moving slowly, past the tiny blue ankle height flowers of green alkanet, the white burst of Mexican orange. When we stopped for a pause I noticed a snail, tiny, stretching its body forward over a leaf, it’s shell bobbing.
Bonnie Radcliffe 