The first signs of spring are there now. In the narrow bed by the kitchen window, the climbing roses that I cut back hard to the bud in deep winter are flushing out leaves. Cumquats are green on the bushes down the back, and in the dark chocolate soil there are signs of crimson new growth on the dormant nubs of peonies.

These are little flinches of hope in a world that seems otherwise stripped of it, a world treading water in a strange and apprehensive hiatus; signs of nature’s perpetual, rhythmic press forward. It abideth forever.