They worked together under openness of arrived spring sky and in affections of season’s sense—the warmth of the sun and a cool in the wind as sky spoke in airy songs of birds around. Together, they toiled in labor that renewed, rather than exhausted, spirit.
With shovel, they turned earth, softened tilth with spade, planted by hand, then raked to fine-tined finish. In their labor, hands colored with engraining of the soil into fingerprints and palms; identifying marks and lifelines imprinted with hue of earth and the scent of living humus.
Under light of the sun, she wore boots and a flaxen-colored sundress that draped loose upon body with tapered straps that narrowed over shoulders; and above all, she wore sunhat of straw that shaded beneath its brim.
When day finished, they held pleasure in their sign and proof of labor: the dark brown of rich, worked earth framed in manicure of green; neat rows of lain and planted seed that in light of the world and lengthening of days would rise as sign and hope to a season of bounty and mirthful toil in life season beneath the sun.
There is something to the spring—colors, signs, signs, songs, and sense—that raises and wakes spirit, same as life from a dormant world.
With the setting of the sun, they returned indoors and washed themselves of their labor: sweat and scent of purposeful work with body and hands and the residue of earth imprinted, still, on palms and lifelines.
Waiting and resting as he cleaned, she looked upon herself in mirror and the effects and change of single day beneath sky of spring. Tan lines shone where shoulder straps had held, the skin of her shoulders and high chest rosed in pink of light burn before adapting tan; and through the rose, freckles returned like season stars washed away in winter’s white. Within rosed skin, she felt her warmth while cool remained on rest in winter’s tone.
Observing and musing in mirror, she smiled on her changes and spring’s affection. She moved lithely about the room lighting candles with softer, different light that warmed in aura as she was touched, again, by cool in a wind through opened window. She left her signs, lines, and change from day under living sun speak—emanant in the full of spring fecundity and hope—as she waited in straw sunhat.