Since Spring began I've been watching the tree next to my porch. I chose a single bud, one bud in from the tip of the branch, close enough to reach out and touch, and have been paying attention to how it's been changing. First, it was a red cluster, a little wound ball, and then the cluster began to peel away from itself and the red tips of leaves began to appear. The tips started to separate, turn green, and grew out into the beginning of singular leaves. I lost track of the bud for a week or so and yesterday looked for it, but it was no longer where I thought it should be. Its branch had moved lower by a foot and a half, the weight of the branch's leaves bending it closer to the ground. Of course, this must be the same for every thin branch, sagging from the weight of its leaves. I'd never noticed this before, that the shape of a tree in Winter is different then in Spring. The trees in winter stand straighter and more erect, and we can see through their branches and wish for warmer weather and imagine what it will be like when it finally comes. And it has come, but in my mind the image of a tree is still the one made from cold air and contraction, inward and stiff. I can no longer see the shape of the tree, its parts, but instead see its color.