The Sun’s Healing Fingers

It is slow, like something emerging from winter, a tentative bud on the otherwise bare twig. Barely perceptible, it is the merest hint of green against the dull dead grey of winter.

We wait, patiently, because we know it is coming and we know that it will grow in response to the sunlight and the warmth.

We wait, impatiently, because we long for life and colour after the long slow winter.

We are eager to feel the sun warming our cold fingers, feel the heat of the day spreading through flesh that has lain hidden under clothes and blankets for too long. We need to feel the sun’s healing fingers touching us, bringing us alive like the flowers and the trees.

Soon our whole world will turn green again; already the blackbirds are out gathering nesting material as the grass grows lush around them.

Back when we were younger, we took all this for granted, hardly noticing the changing seasons. Now, though, as we feel our own seasons beginning to tumble towards our autumns, we notice more, want to get closer, feel the need of the spring to bring us back to life again.

For now we know, deep down, there is a limit to the number of these springs we’ll see and – we know – each time we live through one, it draws our very last one ever closer.