Yellow daffodils,
radiant in the spring sun,
bloom early, & then?

But today, at last, it's raining an honest rain. Puddles gather on the factory roof below my office window. Wet cars on wet streets splash water in swollen gutters. I am contently melancholy: nostalgia and longing mingle with the gray clouds, keep time to the humming computers that surround me.

The year's daffodils are gone. Tulips still thrive in shady areas. I imagine the woods full of wild flowers, though they bloom without me. In parts of Finland, blueberry blossoms have frozen, betrayed by an early heat spell.

I've yet to see a swallow, though maybe I haven't looked enough. As I understand it, an ancient Chinese tribe chose swallows as their totem, because their return indicated when the crops should be sown. I am always surprised by their frenzied arrival; more surprised that they seem to have always been there, than that they've come.

Lauttasaari is filled with pheasants. Their grinding cries fill the day. I imagine the wind-up bird each time I hear them.

I'm waiting for mushrooms to come.