Winter winds down and it's been too long since I shut myself off from the cold, cold world. I drew my breath all the way down to my roots, buried myself in the frozen earth, hidden from sight and safe from the sting of a world with such a distant sun. I knew I'd return when the sunshine came home, and now that spring has sprung, and longer days have begun, I can't roll out of bud quickly enough. Once I've fully emerged and spread myself wide to dance in the sky and fly in the breeze; once the summer sun is splashing down, feeding me from above, filling me with love; then the cold winter days will be gone and forgotten. The distant past will no longer matter -- except for the memory that I can't quite escape, and my knowing that the short days, the cold winds, the quiet death will return at summer's end.