I've heard in the spring we'll live again

Spring has been winking at me for a month.

I've been winking back.

Daffodils defy sidewalks and tulips politely smile at each morning's sleep-drunk pageant of shivering dogs and damp coat hems.

Plum and pear tree blossoms blush at their own audacity and laugh pinkly down with the rain onto the concrete cold of a city still yawning in its winter bed.

Evening masquerades as Afternoon with the idle sun forgetting its appointments.

A crush of petals paste over windows like rice clinging to a bridal veil - the promise of a honeymoon on the steps of a stone-gray church.

The smell of new grass mixes with soursweet cedar.

Warm shoulders and numb toes.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

My neighborhood farmer's market re-opens soon. I'm itching to wander vendor to vendor, fruit stand to flower stall, to have happy Sunday mornings saturated with tastes and colors as fresh and familiar as summer rain.

In the meantime, la nouvelle saison has inspired an Art Nouveau kick; the rapture and beauty found in the blend of women and nature have romanced me a bit (and have maybe made me a tad envious, as well). Alphonse Mucha's 1896 Season series (Spring, in particular) inspired a little seasonal drawing of my own.

Spring Girl

She looks happy, I think. Blissful, even. And that hair. 

Seattle is slow to thaw this year, but if I'm lucky - and if the weather obliges - I'll be sharing her spring joy soon enough.