The Soft Catkin in Spring (Pussywillow)

Lyrics

March 15th.
The air is five degrees.
I can see my breath, a little cloud by the stream.
The ground is hard.

The sun is low, it’s only 7:30 in the morning.
The old willow branches are still black with winter sleep.
But on the new shoots... here they are.
Little gray knuckles of fur, breaking through the bark.
Soft, impossible promises against my thumb.
I choose three perfect ones.
Just three.
One for the page, one for the memory, one for the coming thaw.

Salix discolor.
The book calls you the American Pussywillow.
John Bradbury, traveling the Missouri, he wrote...
"A texture akin to the fur of a young animal."
And he was right.
A small, quiet life before the real leaves come. A silver breath.

Back in my room, it’s twenty degrees, and the heater hums.
The window shows the afternoon light already fading.
Four o'clock.
My leather notebook is open on the desk, pages yellowed.
The chamomile tea sends up a little ghost of steam beside it.
The world outside is going blue and sharp with cold.
The world in here is warm paper, and waiting.

I take the fine-tipped tweezers from their box.
Lift the first catkin from the porcelain saucer.
Place it on the right-hand page, just below the middle.
Cover it with a clean slip of wax paper, cut just so.
The sound is a whisper, like the first dry leaves of autumn.
I close the cover, heavy and slow.
And place the flat river stone on top. A patient weight.

With the soft graphite pencil, I write in the margin.
March 15th. By the stream, north bank.
It will be flat in a week.
A gray smudge of impossible softness.
A secret held between the lines about minerals and tides.
A record of the exact morning the cold began to break.

The stone holds it down.
The tea is getting cool on the desk.
Spring is pressed.
And kept.