Not Quite Spring

Late last night, Jupiter, still brighter yellow than makes me quite comfortable, falling towards the west, toward a rag-bed of cloud, and Sirius, with the purer flame of a real star, climbing up under Orion's feet – the sky wheeling forward, or the planet wheeling backward, whichever you like – the not-quite-Spring of late February in Portland. Spring stepping uncertainly towards us, coming down the Valley from the south, but winter has no intention of quitting yet. There's snow and frost still waiting, up the Columbia, for an east wind to come down the Gorge and blast anyone who thinks of budding. The wiser plants are making excuses and stalling for time.

I sit hunched over my coffee, staring at my hands. I have a new client tonight: these hands will be under a new pair of shoulders, lifting the scapulas: tracing the sweet spot under the scapular spine, where the muscle hugs its hollow in the bony plate, down to where it runs under the deltoid. I imagine it would be the choicest meat on the human frame; and it comes with its own serving platter, the shoulder blade.“We'll eat you up, we love you so!” And Max said: “No.”

No. And I wonder, again: are we massage therapists the ones who really get it, the ones who understand that it's always only touch? Or are we the dimmest ones, the hopelessly literal ones who can't really grasp a metaphor? I was touched by his concern, says our neighbor, and we, with a faintly wrinkled brow, answer, no, you were touched by his fingers.

Morning floods into the sky up over the eastern horizon: fills the thin places with light, soaks slowly into the thicker cloud. Sheets of light must be spreading overhead, now. Just barely south of east, where the firs are thickest, for brief time: the red fragments of a sunrise. But they wash pink as I watch, and quickly the color goes entirely. That's all the glory for this morning. The eastern sky fills with heavier cloud and goes a sullen, cold, dark blue. A winter sky. It's not spring yet.