I Wonder What Spring is Like Without Allergies

I wonder what spring is like without allergies. Maybe the blooms are brighter, maybe there's honey in the breeze. Perhaps the air feels fresh and not like a sneeze. When the midwives emerge as a chorus of bees, and the barren sticks return to be trees, the weather is warm and the creatures appeased, I wish that I knew, but I have allergies.

It must be quite a sight to see, the colors of flowers and the insects swarming. We're done with the showers of winter and earned the sun's warming. The plants that stooped and cowered now stand once again and the critters that hid amid the snow can emerge from their dens. It must be quite a sight to see, one I wish I could see, if only my eyes weren't so itchy.

We earned this right, we survived through the cold and braved without light with every ounce of our souls. All we knew was the snow and the gray of getting old, thank heavens we're saved by the spring's tint of gold. Now we can lay in the dirt and the clay and feel the rays that we longed for yesterday. Still, dare I say, I found comfort in being walled in, today I wash myself all day, I'm allergic to pollen.

I wonder what spring is like without allergies. It must be quite a sight to behold, a feeling unmatched, having loved and lost and have it all come back. I remember now, when I was quite young, I was dumb and unwise but at least I had eyes to see all that you sprung. When I didn't struggle with allergies, before I became haunted by memories, there was me, a child eager to see the warmth and life that came with spring.

I envy that boy, so dumb and free, when the pollen was there but not yet perceived. When the sun shined without the worry of burn, when I rolled in the dirt without a concern. Now with my eyes so blind, I long to rewind, every twine has been weaved, every pine has been pined. Where does a man search when he hopes to find a world he can't see, a birch he cannot concieve.

I once knew what spring is like without allergies, how it felt to perform in the nativity play, with the costars of warmth and a vibrant blue jay. But now that my eyes are red and closed, I must breathe with my ears instead of my nose. I can't turn back the clock, time's flowed down the stream past the old man's dock, but still I can see with the eye of a hawk, I can still find god in the meeps of a wobbling woodcock. The beauty was always there, it's just harder to see, when it's spring and now I have spring allergies.

Perhaps, I'll never again know a spring without allergies, where my nose doesn't sneeze, where my throat doesn't squeeze. Perhaps I'll never again live a life of ease, free of disease, nor meet a friend who always agrees. I'll never feel again being eight years old, the delight of a warmth with no sadness to hold. But in this world, that bliss is fleeting, to find the beauty in defeat is the bliss worth repeating. I wonder what life is like without pain, I wish I knew, but then I wouldn't be the same. I wonder what spring is like without allergies, I wish I knew, but then I wouldn't be me.