I didn't find a fallen bird nest today, toppled from the safety of the blue spruce, perfect and round of woven twigs, plastic bits, tinsel, twine, and ribbons and hair from the girl on the swing, singing.
I didn't walk in my yard to see which daffodils were nodding on this half grey day, out-yellowed by the back and side hedges of ancient forsythia.
I didn't work on my rust garden or my vegetable garden.
I did look out one window at a weeping cherry tree, just about to bloom, that my daughter gave me one year for my birthday.
Between the window and the tree were hyacinths, blue and white, that in Persian poetry supposedly feed the soul. Beyond the tree, my new neighbors had tied too few balloons to the mailbox.
I didn't take down the last of my Christmas decorations, a sign that says "snow men melt my heart" and the simple creche with baby Jesus surrounded by his parents, a cow, a donkey, shepherds and sheep, the Wise Men and their camels.