Patient Becoming

Between seasons, suspended in that tender arithmetic of waiting—light bends through the half-open window, a shape that knows its own dissolving. The garden holds its breath, unable to choose between the last freeze and first bloom.

I watch the shadow of the fence lengthen across the grass, each stripe a measurement of hours I cannot hold or hurry. The earth is busy with its small resurrections, patient in ways I am still learning.

Somewhere a bird calls its name to the indifferent trees. I understand now: we are all practicing our departures, learning the grammar of letting go in increments so small they feel like arrival.

In the stillness, time moves sideways. The world continues its becoming, and I am patient too—not because I know what I am becoming, only that the waiting itself is a kind of blooming.