All blossoms report, in time, to dust.
The wind in springtime—always a nomad soul—wanders over shrubs and hedges, over brick-covered roads that remember a thousand footsteps, over prairies that stretch like open palms, and meadows soft as a dream. It roams as if searching for a long-lost companion from yesteryear. Along the way, it gathers a few dry leaves from recent seasons to hear worn-out tales. With a sudden rush and a whooshing tune, a swirl of sand leaps into its invisible lap, ready for a joy ride across the changing landscape. Beneath their joyousness, the sun breaks. Its warm palms caress winter-wrinkled skin, peeling winter rust from the quiet bones beneath.
Everywhere, life stirs and rejoices: the newborn green leaves trembling with light; jubilant birds composing airy ensembles; bees busying themselves along flower beds like tiny, tireless artisans; and souls newly consoled, still recovering from the long spell of winter. The season descends like forgiveness upon everything it touches.
The sky, painted an exuberant blue and brushed with clouds as soft as laughter, crowns this awakening with effortless grace. Once, this was the westward spring—radiant, simple, unconditioned—when time still bent to the cycle of bloom and rest. But those were memories of another age—before the pandemic fractured peace and routine.
Spring fled when silence gripped the world, when the air itself grew cautious and strange. Where has she gone, that gentle wanderer? She no longer dances here in the western United States. In her place, the oppressive triple-digit heat rules—fierce, breathless, unrelenting. The skies, once joyful, often brood behind veils of menacing gray and wear a permanent scowl. And the crisp breezes that once carried a healing touch now arrive as harsh, impatient winds. Seasons stumble out of step, their songs dissonant and pale, as though the old orchestra of the earth has forgotten its score.
Perhaps every season is but a vicissitude of its own vigor. The spring now drifting through the western reaches of the continental United States has lost its cadence—its fervor thinning, its colors fading to pallor. Yet leaves still lift from the soil and, in their appointed hour, sink back into it as the wheel of seasons turns. All year long, breaths and heartbeats vanish into the air, folding into the endless “Kafila” of certainty. While we are obsessed with the singular splendor, shape, and color of all things, uniqueness wanes in the hush of extinction; living or cast away, all find their way back to earth—the fulfillment of the “Leal” promise to life.
Making of:
Inspiration: The Notebooks of F. Scott Fitzgerald – [#249] “The wind searched the walls for the old dust.”
This piece was written in the aftermath of noticing how a season can arrive on time and still feel absent. It is not an argument, nor a record, but an attempt to stay with what lingers when familiar rhythms no longer hold. What follows listens for what remains—after warmth, after certainty, after return.
The images of nomad wind, newborn leaves, and forgiving light came first, then collided with the new reality of triple‑digit heat and sullen skies in the western United States. The language of “Kafila” arrived as a way to name the unending caravan of lives, breaths, and seasons passing through, while “Leal” became the word for the earth’s quiet, faithful promise to take everything back in the end. “Fractured Spring Cadence” is, at heart, a lament for a season out of tune and a recognition that, whether in bloom or in dust, we are all moving in the same long procession.
Note:
Leal: Pronunciation (leel)
Meaning: Adjective, Loyal; honest; true.
Kafila: The Arabic word Qafila/Kafila means “caravan,” “train of travelers,” or “large party of travelers.”