Uptown Sidewalk, Just Before Spring

Pots of lavender cabbages are being revised

for primrose - door decor for three shops

before Eyewear and Marlin's Photo,

where a trellis shows tiny pods of green

starting up into vine.

Ahead, the pebbled aggregate - in squares

like small fields - sprouts edges

of moss and seedling weeds, thick as a crop

after mild rains all winter

in this usually dry land.

I'm walking away from the setting sun

that strikes pink into tops of storefronts

and the trees behind, toward the river,

toward sky in that clear rinse

of blue, deep but fragile,

and opening....