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Springs are not always the same. In some years, April bursts upon Virginia hills in one prodigious leap ? and all the stage is filled at once, whole choruses of tulips, arabesques of forsythia, cadenzas of floweringplum. The trees grow leaves overnight. In other years, spring tiptoes in. It pauses, overcome by shyness, like my grandchild at the door, peeping in, ducking out of sight, giggling in the hallway. “I know you’re out there,” I cry. “Come in!” And April slips into our arms. The dogwood bud, pale green, is inlaid with russet markings. Within the perfect cup a score of clustered seeds are nestled. One examines the bud in awe: Where were those seeds a month ago? The apples display their milliner’s scraps of ivory silk, rose-tinged. All the sleeping things wake up ? primrose, baby iris, blue phlox. The earth warms ? you can smell it, feel it, crumble April in your hands. Look to the rue anemone, if you will, or the pea patch, or to the stubborn weed that thrusts its shoulders through a city street. This is how it was, is now, and ever shall be, the world without end. In the serene certainty of spring recurring, who can fear the distant fall? 春不总是千篇一律的。有时候，四月一个健步就跃上了弗吉尼亚的小山丘。顿时，整个舞台活跃起来：郁金香们引吭高歌，连翘花翩翩起舞，梅花表演起了独奏。树木也在一夜之间披上了新绿。 | 
