Hallelujah! What I believed had permanently departed my patch of Vermont returned: sun! Warmth!

Yesterday afternoon while I’m holed up in the Montpelier library, working, my daughter texts me, asking if she can open the house windows. Please? It’s hot.

At home, we open the upstairs glassed-in porch too. Her cat presses against a window screen, entranced by — what is that? — singing chickadees?!

My daughter asks, Why are you so happy? Is it spring?

I answer, It’s enough, right now.

What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth’s sweet being…

— Gerard Manley Hopkins, from “Spring”