there are, of course, those early spring moments, late in the day, after a cold front has passed through and left the air clean and clear, and the yellow light bursts through the young lower leaves of the cottonwood tree as they sway in the cool breeze, and it looks like a crowd of people waving with kindness, pure of truth and dazzled with light, while above, the horizontal rooftops bisect the sky, and the crabapple tree looks its best, wearing the white finery of full bloom, and the birds hurry from all around to perch in its boughs as the yellow light falls across them, making them look so proud. and the feeling this brings may last just a few seconds, a minute or two at most, but it is saving, a saving feeling rippling through a body.