Spring was hard. The hardest. For this late in his life spring brought so many earlier springs to also touch him—a rush of them, each with a voice clearer than the next. Each singing faintly of promise, of rebirth, and not so faintly of fragrant and sunny mornings just above freezing but warming, warming, warming as the sun climbed well above the farmer's barn, huge and dark up there on the hill to the east.

And in her tow, as she spread herself upon the northern earth: melting snow, dripping icicles, the expanse of fields gradually yielding their ocean of snow to the ever-hungry brightening sky. Insatiable for snow this sky, this sun, every spring long into April, sometimes even May. Snow lingering, appetite waning by then.

Not so warm this morning, though, and no sun, not yet, not here, not now. Warmer then—so many thens ago.

He was sitting by the window, wrapped in two, nay three blankets, though still shivering a little from the cold. Yes, he could turn up the thermostat but there was the question of electrical bills, and he was trying to keep them within payable reason; blankets, no matter how many you piled on, did not come with a monthly bill.

There was frost on the windows this morning—that breathtaking pattern of frozen water crystals, ever different, ever magnificent. Like a wide, pale landscape, drawn by God's hand, he thought. He lost himself in it until the now rising sun took her jealous hand to the icy masterpieces and melted them out.

April had arrived and it should be warmer. In a few days, they had said on the radio, warm air bellowing up from the south. A ways off yet, they said, leaving Germany as we speak.

The surrounding fields were both white (with snow) and green and yellow (with new and old grass) and many birds were flying to and fro busy doing their many bird things. He shivered again and thought briefly about lighting a fire, but the project seemed too daunting to him, what with the stiffness here and there and what with the little pains that came and then didn't go some of them. Perhaps another blanket.