Forsythia by Kaela Burke

forsythia is the first sign of spring, my mother would tell me growing up. Summer is her favorite season, so we'd look for the tiny yellow petals every time we drove to school or the grocery store or practice and we'd know that warm weather and good times were on their way. We would grin every time a new bush bloomed, another bit of brown giving way to the insistent canary wildflowers we had grown to love. The crazy yellow carpet that let everyone in the town know that it was April and spring had arrived in full force. The forsythia would come and everything else would follow in a great parade of joy and life and celebration of the sunny days ahead. And so we would watch the cherry blossoms, then the willow trees, then the dogwoods and aspens and the great big violet rhododendron we had in our garden bloom one after the other, and the hills would fill in day by day until they were covered in great swaths of green and pink and orange. And at the very end of May the last flower in the garden would bloom, and the peonies were undeniably my favorite. Big pink and white flowers that smelled sweet like candy, covered in ants the whole month of June. The peonies arrived just in time for the last days of school, where we lazed around and had field days and waited for the 180 days to finally tick by and then summer, and my mother would come home happy for no other reason than it was still light out, and we'd have barbecues and bonfires and so each year I grin when I see the little yellow petal, because forsythia means spring is here, and the warm weather and good times are on their way.