Sitting in a local diner on a rainy spring day, I dive a fork into my egg, and the golden yolk spreads across my plate. It’s the color of sunshine, a reminder on this chill morn of warm days on the horizon.

Spring is popping up all around, in the cowlicks of wild chives dotting the yard, the daffodils nodding in the wet wind, the unfurling leaves of the climbing hydrangea, the robins nestled in the pine tree. Soon the air will be heady with the fragrance of blossoming limbs and sun-warmed soil.

I love the turning of the earth this time of year. Daylight stretches her long finger our way, beckoning us to imagine what we might cultivate in those extra hours: poetry, friendships, young love, gardens.

I shake seeds into a tilled plot and hover like a broody hen, clapping with excitement every time a new shoot pokes out of the dirt, giddy with the knowledge that I coaxed something to grow. I know the science behind it, and yet every seed that sprouts seems like a small miracle, bursting with possibility, rooted in wonder.