(As noted on April 7th, 2025)

I forgot when the Trilliums bloom.

It's sometime around now, I think.

It can't be.

But I felt the sun yesterday and the warmth blew in.

I know, it's early.

I see purple and yellow wildflowers creeping up in yards and fields.

Amongst the deadheaded stretches of goldenrod and milkweed, even.

I don't know the name of most of them. Do I need to, to appreciate them?

I never felt like I did. A name fails nature every time, anyways. Just like art does, really.

Pale attempts to translate what can only be experienced, never spoken, never depicted.

How do I even know what a Trillium is? It struck me when I saw them down by the creek, a few years ago. I was running, dancing almost, bare feet (almost) on the trail, playing don't step on the rocks.

But I saw them and I stopped. I needed to know.

Brilliant blooms for a short time next to the stormwater runoff and forever chemicals and plastics me and my family drink a little bit of, every day.

I feel a few snowflakes on my neck. So it can't be now.

There can't be the Trilliums, yet.

But it was yesterday, I felt the warmth blow in.

And the small spring flood remains. Water in so many places it usually isn't. I like it.

It's early in April, and no, the Trilliums aren't here yet.

Please, don't tell me when it is. I don't want to know.

I want to learn, instead. To see it happen.

When the time is right, I will.

I wonder if, next year, I will remember.

(All photographs April 7, 2025 near an offshoot of Mallet's Creek in Ann Arbor, Michigan)