Forsythia Haiku

dusk nearing dark —
even the forsythia
gives in to grey

~

Seeing the way less light takes its toll on the colors of the world — at least as I perceive them — reminds me of another time when my way of seeing the world shifted. The first full day that T and I spent together in Philadelphia was a day like any other. We walked around town, ate a famously nondescript (and now defunct) restaurant, I don't even remember what else. But it felt wonderful, full of smiles and laughter, and as she left I experienced a burst of acute awareness... the color seemed to go out of the day, and I thought, "Oh, it was she who made the day special," with a kind of bemused wonderment. Anyone who had seen us together that day would probably have come to that conclusion much earlier. But I didn't figure it out until the door closed behind her as she walked down the stoop to her car parked on Cedar Avenue.