The spring sun is different from the summer sun.

The sun in summer is omnipotent, omnipresent.

There is no escape from the relentless oven of the summer sun.

It WILL find you. It WILL burn you.  It WILL roast you.

A July sun in Tennessee is like being wrapped in a wool blanket

over a turtleneck in a sweat lodge.

 

The spring sun is different from the fall sun.

October evenings the sun is waving goodbye

from a place in the sky that seems farther away.

It is the recessing sun, the melancholy light of days gone by.

Its passing is honored by the momentary capture of its essence in a backyard fire pit

on a jacket night, under moons full or waxing or most likely waning.

The fall sun sits on the flatlands of West Tennessee and

sizzles its final goodbye as it sinks into the Father of Waters.

 

The spring sun is different from the winter sun.

January can be so dreary and damp.

The winter sun is often absent entirely.

They say it’s still up there, beaming as always behind a thick cover of clouds,

but I don’t always believe it.

It’s a good thing the red and green of Christmas happens in winter,

otherwise a Tennessee yule would be nothing but grey.

 

The spring sun beckons like an invitation.

It doesn’t burn; it warms.   It doesn’t kill; it enlivens.

The spring sun has a different light altogether,

one that brings promise and joy and flowers.

We are reminded that life goes on.

We are reminded that we go on.

The spring sun is different.