I am afraid I shall bloom to soon, I said staring through the window's glass to branches bare, and grey. An artist's stroke, a loaded brush, A flick of the wrist and there. A trunk, a limb, a limb angling, reaching skyward. It is pronounced and beautiful this winter tree holding its ground, standing strong against a blue blue sky. A sky too soft for this season. A sky for June. Underfoot life shoots forth green, effortless early from ground that offers no resistance. It is February the heart of a winter that wasn't, and so we all look about the warm grateful but confused the birds the plants and I.