thoughts, words, deeds

spring is like . . .

"Spring is like perhaps a hand / (which comes carefully / out of Nowhere)arranging / a window,into which people look," writes e. e. cummings, using the image of a hand and its actions to describe the nature of spring. His musings go on in the poem to make various imaginative leaps, but its twists and turns are held together by the shared exploration of a specific subject. Try writing your a poem, short story or blog entry that begins with, "Spring is like..." and explore the season through similes.

Spring is like paint laid over a canvas in layers—the light green fuzz of leaves just budded, white flowers blanketing the dogwood trees, daffodils smiling sunshine into grass growing greener by the brushstroke, sunshine layering stronger and brighter and warmer until suddenly, the naked world is clothed again and spring is here—the painting complete.

Spring is like a tap—in turns dripping slow and steady as a leaking faucet, rushing with the power and majesty of Niagara, or misting with the warm, steady gentleness of a showerhead, washing winter away and leaving water in its wake. Spring is water—the rivers rising by painful inches until they overflow and coat the bases of trees and pylons and fences with mud. Good, strong, healthy mud that is ready for things to grow.

Spring is a thickening in the air. It is mists of pollen spreading the fall over the earth in a green cloud that coats walkways and cars and roads with its sticky presence. It is like nature reminding us that we are not in control—we are the strangers here, the ones who choke on life where all other living things thrive.

Spring is like a child’s naptime—waiting and needed and put off until the world gets cranky and falls awake in a single burst of spring that a person could blink and miss on the day that winter turns to summer.