Death Can be Beautiful

Tiny pink flowers sprout from each quarter inch of the branches by the driveway. A little further up the street, another tree displays a white dress, and looks to be covered in lace. It is beautiful and tugs a smile from my mouth whether I am going out or coming home. Spring! it says.

But it is February Fourth. Not Spring, not close.

The catepillars that eat Spring leaves, and the baby birds that depend on their plump bodies, are not yet born, and will miss their feast. Their life cycles are farther removed from the weather: the trees feel the unseasonably warm winter and get confused, or are powerless to slow their response; the bugs and the birds cannot fuck any faster nor speed up gestation to catch the warm wind. The changes are making the bees so crazy, that, worldwide, they are just giving up. Vanishing.

Beauty is fleeting, they say. Indeed.