Spring

Spring

Spring breeze

blooms goosebumps.

Tendrils of a Japanese fern,

older than my children,

push through the dirt.

In the weedless lawn next door

a yard sign stands.

RESIST.

And the coffee mugs returned to the cabinet.

_______________________________________________

We’ve always liked our neighbors.

The real kind of like — chats over the fence, cookies at Christmas, an easy wave.

Then the sign went up.

RESIST.

And I felt it.

Not in them.In me.

I pulled back a little. Judged a little. Decided something I didn’t even mean to decide.

Which is strange, because I don’t think of myself that way. I like conversation. I like hearing how people land where they land. I don’t think truth belongs to one side of anything.

But that word didn’t feel like a conversation.

It felt like a stance.

Now when I look next door, I don’t just see my neighbor.

I see a position.

Maybe that’s just me.

Following directions.