Into the light, cloudily

Spring begins, or so the modern weather people say with their flowing hand gestures and graphical maps. The sun's position crosses the celestial equator to the north marking the middle of spring in the old reckoning. The day when the daylit hours begin to outweigh the night, the vernal equinox marks our return to the realm of light. It happens in a blink of an eye, faster really, and life rushes toward the light in a flurry of bird song, new sandals, and insect wings. Usually. It has been unseasonably cold enough to put a chill on the bug celebrations.

Anyway, I put on my beanie and sweater to brave the mounting cloudiness and capture whatever seasonal frivolity I could find in the thin glow of spring.

There were some brightly colored blobs among the anise foliage. Most of them were bird droppings, but this one turned out to be a dead treehopper fallen from the nearby cestrum onto the feathery new spring leaves of the anise. Surely there are treehopper eggs enough tucked into the bark of the cestrum, and I'll consider the next generations a scourge before summer is over, especially when they move onto my beefsteak tomato plants. Still I felt a little sad. Probably just the overcast sky, and now the rain, since everybody knows southern Californians can't be happy without the sun shining. Why would a wee tetrahedron of lime green lifeless cuticle make anyone sad, found dead just as we both and the garden we have lived in turned back to the light?