Alien Zephyr

A soft warm beauty more gently lovely than I had seen in a long time came visiting yesterday. She gracefully entered from the West. She effervesced a teasing smell that did not reflect or fit the gray and sleeping landscape over which she skipped. She entered with such presence that all living things stopped to watch and held their breath as if they were afraid their presence might frighten her into leaving not to return anytime soon. The birds then broke into songs that they usually saved for the best of the springtime days. Those plants that winter's icy fingers had not yet put to sleep, seemed ready to burst with renewed energy. I wandered through the nearby woods drinking in the warm smell as if I had been oxygen deprived for weeks, as perhaps I had. I closed my eyes and let her breath linger on my skin hoping to hold this memory for months to come. When I returned home I flung open windows everywhere to let the perfume inside. What a lovely gift the earth has given me this time of year.