They were always happy to see her. “Hey, Robin!” Women waving from windowsills freshly opened. Kids on bicycles, spinning newly bare-legged. The mail carriers with a little extra spring in their steps. And that was it, she supposed, this spring. She hadn’t realized what was brought each year — this promise of renewal. This hope of better days. But she had seen her mother do it, from, well, this bird’s eye view. Fully nested she watched the earth give her mother an approving wink, and she knew one day she would do the same.

She couldn’t remember the day it happened. It seemed she was just flying. Underneath her mother’s wing, she soared through city and field. Darting and dancing. Oh, what joy to be in her mother’s stream. Flowers bloomed and bees sang along in seemingly endless sun. She wasn’t worried when the colors began to change. They were still lovely. Almost the rouge of her own breast. How could that be bad? So she kept flying through the dropping leaves. She hadn’t seen winter yet. But her mother prepared her as best she could. “But if we bring the spring,” she questioned, why don’t we just bring it now?” Her mother smiled, knowing she had asked the same thing. And her mother before her. I suppose everyone wonders. Why the winter months? Poets and philosophers have always tried to answer. But maybe the most truthful was her mother — who stopped focusing on the why, and only looked forward to the sweet call.

She thinks about her daily. Hears her song in each twig that she rests on. Her tiny orange heart can get away from her. And she knows she wasn’t promised spring. No, she would have to bring it. The thought heavies her wings, and she waits. It takes a winter, I suppose, for the “have to” to turn to a “get to.” But the hopeful flutter returns. She “gets to” bring the spring. What a privilege! She leaps from branch to blue, and hears the joyful cries — “Hey, Robin!”