Selected Cronicas

I KNOW WHAT SPRING IS LIKE

I know it sounds rather fatuous to say in the middle of spring that I know what spring is like. But sometimes I am so reticent that friends get annoyed. My reticence stems from gratitude and is probably excessive. That childish I is uttered with a child’s fear. But this time, when I saw that I was being much too reticent in expressing my happiness as spring arrived bringing showers, this time I embraced what belongs to me and to others.

I know what spring is like because I can smell the pollen in the atmosphere as if it were mine, I can feel myself tremble when a little bird sings, and feel that I am unconsciously renewing my life. Because I am alive.

Transparent and mortal, let that agonizing spring speak for me, that spring I impatiently await year after year. I know it brings turmoil to the senses, but why resist its dizzying spell? I accept this head of mine beneath the glistening showers of spring, I accept my existence and that of others because that is their privilege and without them I should die, I accept the possibility of the existence of the great Beyond despite my having prayed for so little, only to be denied.

I feel that to live is inevitable. In springtime I can sit smoking for hours, simply existing. But existing can sometimes cost blood, and there is no way of avoiding this because it is in my blood that I feel spring. And it hurts. Spring gives me things. It gives me the wherewithal to live. And I feel that I shall die on a spring day. Die of wounding love and a broken heart.