March’s sunrays play the trickster, intent upon teasing buds erupting from rough canes of the forsythia bush next to my porch. For five springs I have gloried in its abrupt flowering, fingered its yellow bell-shaped blossoms, studied its rain-soaked pendant shapes shielding reproductive parts, sorrowed over storms splatting spent yellows within pools of mud, and noted its fruit: several winged seeds in dry capsules.

Such was also my experience encountering tangled mounds of forsythia bushes in the nearby woods: their color wafting me to a wordless realm, their untidiness transporting me to a strange order that made total sense.

Yet, the process of unfolding happened too quickly, multiple lessons held over to the following year, if I remembered … Perhaps this year will be different.

KODAK Digital Still Camera