The leafless trees stand proud and stoic having borne the brunt of many a change in season. And seasons of change. Sodden leaves lie at the base of their former homes, waiting for warmer days to be raked away into oblivion. They are infused with new life, as the hardened ice that was once powdery snow thaws away into the earth. Branches spray out into the open sky in complex arabesques and the other myriad designs of nature . A woman walks her dog as it sniffs around new found opportunities as that one swallow whose destiny it is to fool the naive of summer, chirps in the bushes. The warm evening sun conspires with the wind to allow life, for once, to be staid and constant. A click of the lighter and the cigarette is lit. The coils of smoke curl around your fingers in thin eddies and disappear into the crisp air. You try to follow it as long as you can, but before you know it, it is now one with the air around.
Don’t worry. I put the cigarette out and threw it in the bin.
