It’s springtime, alright. Even within the walls of our citified concrete compound, new life is being born as if in defiance of every cement surface keeping soil from its rightful place saddled up against the sky.

A six-foot tomato plant that grew from compost turned chicken shit in our backyard coop.

It’s springtime, alright. The sun – with so much to accomplish – dries our clothes in half the time. How else would it manage to conduct the song of sparrows, bathe my kitchen in perfect morning light and still have time to ensure the miracle of photosynthesis all in a day’s work?

Notice the songbird?

It’s springtime, alright. Granadas are back in season — slimy and sour, seedy and sweet. So are tuberoses. That same bunch you buy at Whole Foods for $18 is grown in the hills outside our town and costs me about a buck fifty. If you’ve ever smelled tuberoses, you know that their beauty is really just a bonus.

It’s springtime, alright. The dry and toppled stalks of last year’s harvest are being unearthed, swept and tidied (like Mayan spring cleaning), then mounded in the milpa for some lucky cattle or crow. Mothers pause the season’s cultivation for a picnic of tortillas and beans. Seems suitable – even sacred – considering the two crops they are preparing to plant.

It’s springtime, alright. I’ve been instructed to crack our eggs just so (“Yes, Mom, cascarones on Easter are totally worth a few egg shells in your breakfast”).

It’s springtime, alright. Tender, young shoots of understanding are emerging from my compacted, contemplative winter. And so it seems, the answers to the complex and disconcerting questions I’ve been asking are being shown to me in the smallest of details, under the simplest of circumstances and in stillest of moments…

It’s springtime alright. At the urging of the songbirds, inspired by tomato vines birthed from chicken shit, and in the interest of everything worth caring for, I’ve begun to relax the furrows on my brow — to allow for a change of season. I figure that if nature bears witness to every known injustice and still manages to set the trees in bloom, I need not worry over injustice. And if the perpetuation of life is spring’s reaction to disparity, then maybe I ought to determine which of my own reactions encourage growth.

Last season had its purpose, as do furrows: they allow for a depth and strength in the rooting of seeds. Seeds of understanding are really no different, I think — in which case I need feel nothing but hopeful, I need change nothing but my focus and I need do nothing but tend my seedlings and trust in the springtime.

The loveliest little bouquet – picked from a garden, surrounding a shack and given to me by a single mother of six. I’m always amazed at the generosity of people who have so little.

No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn. – Hal Borland