Missing you on the eve of Spring

For the Return of my Friend
©4/26/24 Hannah McLean

My face turns toward the Spring breeze
lungs breathe deep
and I am filled.
The sights and sounds and smells that surround me
pour out their promises in the way only nature may.
And in this air, I cannot help but hope.

Time is ever changing things,
this I know,
the tiny nose that once wrinkled up a baby face
now sets among features matured into a different beauty.

Soft found hard.
The trials of life have a way of shaping things,
like the persistent rushing river through the grand canyon
forging in its passing a thing of extravagant wonder.

And yet,
many water cannot change all things
for my love persists;
unable to be washed away by current
unwilling to be pulled away by wind and gale
ever beating as the heartbeat at the core of life itself.

Hope rides upon the fresh air
as things once dead beneath the cold of winter
emerge in victorious shades of living color.
If ever it was time, why not now?

I open up my doors
I throw wide my windows
and cast my voice and heart into the earthen air.
My longing for you to come stretches across the space
between us;
may it find its way to you
nudging your heart to turn my way
spreading out a bridge worth walking.

I will be here,
this you must know,
listening for the sound of your footsteps
across the freshly plowed earth.