Hibner Park

Two days after a March snow. A little warmer. The air not soft yet but no longer so cold it seems to sharpen everything. I'm early for the doctor so I walk down to Hibner park, which is really just a wide bit of boulevard with a fountain, two flowerbeds, and some playground equipment. The benches slatted with snow so I perch on a swing. Melt is close. My boots press the snow into blue-grey prints. I saw snowdrops today.

It's a neighbourhood of big trees, grand old houses, and grand old houses turned into lawyers' offices and odd-shaped apartments. I used to live around here. The trees in the park are elm, I think. (They don't have elm trees where I grew up; a plague got them.) Geneva trees – straight, reserved, humourless, graceful. Sunday's snow is still clinging to trees high up but in the sun it drips – one bright sphere at a time. They seem like drops of light. They seem to come from nowhere.

The sun sways in and out behind the straight trunk of the elm as the swing creaks. When it begins to crest the twigs nearby are for a moment gilded, flocked with light. No buds yet on the elm. But across the street a silver maple looks embroidered: stem-stitched twigs with French knot buds in dark red.