Saving Daylight

On  the  drive  home   from   her  after-school   karate   class,  my
daughter  and  I  have the windows open for  the first  time  since
the  trees  still held  their color. The city bus stops are  gilded with
the glint that only appears in a springtime twilight, so many bare
arms  poking   their  sunless  elbows  out  of   t-shirt  sleeves—like
box  turtles  at  the surface of a pond.  We pass the city cemetery
where   a  group  is   gathered   above  a  funeral  blanket.  A red-
winged   blackbird    inspects   a  crash  of   balloons  marking   a
tombstone  &  I  can’t  help  but  wonder: Is it a  blessing  to put a
loved  one to  rest on such a  beautiful evening?  Or does it make
everything worse—the  smell  of  thaw all  around, the  field grass
still bent  by snow?  Last week  at this time,  deer  grazed  among
the   headstones  &  overturned   ceremonial  greenery.   When  I
begin  to  ponder  where they  are,  I  realize  it’s  me   who’s  here
early,  having  walked  around my  life  for  days  adding  time  to
every   small   machine   I   count   on,   lamenting  the   loss   with
strangers:  People  with  places to be.  People with  to-do lists  we
all     think     we’ll    out-run.    “Is it true that we lost an hour?”   my
daughter   asked  when   she  returned  home  from   school  that
Monday.  Sort of,  I tell her,  which was  easier to say  than,  We  all
collectively chose to pretend an hour never happened. Unlike the
deer, the blackbird, the  snow’s slow return to the river.  Before the
man I called my godfather died one winter evening, he caught me
waiting  for spring  with spectacular  impatience: Never wish time
away, he told me then,  as if he said it to everybody. As if he knew
his  own  time  was ticking  faster,  as if to  be buried  in the spring
was both an omen & a dream.