'Springing' by Dimitra Fimi

The back garden looks like a meadow. Daddy said he wanted to do “No Mow May”
this year, but I think he just couldn’t be bothered with the back garden. Which is a
good thing as it’s a paradise for bees and damsel flies and ladybirds now.

It’s a sunny, sparkling day, and mummy has hung the clothes out to dry for the first
time since last summer. Garments are flapping gently in the breeze, brushing the tips
of the long grass, the yellow poppies, and clusters of that strange orange flower, with
baby orange flowers all around, competing for space atop a slender stem. Mummy
says it’s called “fox and cub”. 

Daddy said he saw fox poo in the front garden. Perhaps there’s a real fox and its
cubs hiding somewhere behind this jungle of grasses.

I know it’s time.

I sit under the apple tree and wait. 

A ladybird lands on my tummy. It walks up the length of my torso and I see it flying
up, touching the tip of my nose, and disappearing above my head. 

On the washing line, the sleeve of daddy’s blue shirt picks up an orange flower and
hands it to mummy’s lilac blouse. The blouse hugs the shirt.

Then soft fur brushes my ear. “Look at them!”, says the fox, nodding at two tawny
tails frolicking among the flowers. “Aren’t they the most beautiful children in the
world?” 

I close my eyes and let the sun write secret messages on the inside of my eyelids. 

I smile and whisper the right answers back to him. 

There. I’ve made the spring spread sprightly again.