I remember spring as popcorn clouds painted on a canvas so blue it hurt to look at it. I remember spring sitting on the bank of a pond, staring at a bobber on glass water that showed me the far shoreline in a picture upside down. In spring blackbirds hunted dragonflies from their perches on cattails and I was silent because Daddy said, "To catch fish you got to hold your mouth right."

It felt like spring today as I ran down Pace Road in the quiet of morning, sun bright and birds singing. I guess it's a sign I've had enough winter. I passed by Ol' Man Davis's pond and a red-winged blackbird landed on a cattail and I was transported back in my memories to a simple time, a time when I crouched by a pond staring at a bobber wondering where the world might take me some day.

I am ready for spring. I'm ready for the earth to paint itself in color again, ready for jonquils, azaleas, and queen anne's lace. Twenty-five tom turkeys stretched their necks high in the air as I ran by, disturbed from pecking out a breakfast in Ol' Man Davis's pasture. They eat his calves' feed and he says, "Kill em' all Jimmy. Kill ever last one of um'," and I'm obliged to -- come spring.