It is good that I have come early while spring is still serene. I know how outrageous and demanding she can be. Listening, I hear Whitman running through the tall trees like a small child playing hide and seek with the birds and I can just barely smell the death of fall. I'm still too quick to pay a fountain for something it cannot give until a hot summer day while I wait for the exchange of stone to grass. At thirty-seven, I'm now aware of the specific gravity of my footsteps on the gravel path and I notice the veins running through the bark of the trees and I look at the veins in my arm. It's good to be like moss, the forgotten undergrowth, or a fanning pinecone next to a joking oak. Before I go, I take the time to watch the Koi eagerly gulping in the sliced-tomato sun's color as it warms us both.