This is the week when flowers began busting out all over. In the neighbor's yard, over the fence, I can just glimpse the top branches of her always-spectacular azalea, which went from tiny buds to full bloom in two days flat. By her front door, a pink magnolia's delicate blossoms on still-bare grey branches glow in the afternoon sun. In our own yard, a single, odd, rose-colored bulb of some kind (a hyacinth, maybe?) has suddenly opened its petals in an otherwise still barren patch of garden. Pink is such an alluring color in nature, and right now, so refreshing for the eye, these splashes of color transfusing into a slowly-awakening world.

These early petals--
alluring pink of lips, skin,
rosy newborn life.