I live at the bottom of a big hill rising up from Lake Superior, and every day on my way to work I get to drive (well, D drives, actually, most days) up this hill and admire the beautiful scenery. On one side you can catch a sunrise over the Lake — the reappearance of this sunrise from the dark, dark winter is one of the points each year when I think probably we’ll survive this frozen season, and spring will come again.

But the other side of the road is a thick forest of aspen trees, standing for much of the school year — at least as far as we can remember back, this far in — the trees rise up in stark slashes carved into the empty white sky. Each spring there’s a day (was it today? maybe yesterday?) when the trees start to glow in the morning with the slightest hint of color, and then, on the drive home, they have unfurled their proud, tiny leaves.

And every spring, on that day, I try to write this poem.

every spring I grapple with green

with the word that doesn’t quite exist

the word that means the green equivalent of a healthy blush

rising up across the thicket

of sticks that soon will wave and flutter

flags of softly rattling whispering shushing

green leaves growing lush

but the blush—what’s the word?