Oscine omen

It appears that winter has delivered its last cruel open-handed slap of the season, has staggered backwards and fallen (hopefully) into a six-month drunken slumber. In its wake, brown dust levitates from sand-blasted asphalt, dissolving into the beige air. Dirty concrete is solid and solemn under my shoes, the weathered faces of office towers ashen in my peripheral vision. Everything seems afraid to take a breath.

And then a patch of green. A tree with tiny bulging buds, trembling with anticipation. A plump and contented sparrow blinking large brown eyes down at me, tilts its feathered head, and sings the new season toward me.

12 May 2005, 17:05