A February dawn seldom breaks pastel over a sun-soaked horizon, more often creeps grey like a duvet over bare limbs, eaves, and dormant beds. February dawns do not take time to smile languidly on sentimental wishes plucked from flower petals, or found in a four-leaf clover or on a bed of hay. February argues against sensible minds awaiting a fresh start with bright spring greens, warm light, and tennis courts long laid fallow, and simply demands that we listen. So I listen and walk before the city takes shape, a chill rain tapping a syncopated beat on my parka, and I am brought back suddenly on a winter duck hunt with Don, shotguns cradled in folded arms against the drizzle, me hoping I won’t have to put a finger to a metal trigger and shoot. Then I hear his voice when a varied thrush trills across the park, piercing the drum of rain-- his low dozy chirping, his sudden rush of laughter at something said, an old joke, a memory lost, then a burst of surprise at some beautiful thing a sensible person would never notice. A low trill from a thrush, a gust of wind, tree limbs waver. I lift my face, awash. In the rain pellets I hear his halting voice the days before he slipped away, affirming February’s argument—love is eternal.
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