My Favorite Springtime Color

My favorite springtime color is black. Just look at it!

It's been raining here for the past few days, punctuated by nice mild, sunny days. As a result, the trees and the grass are the kind of vibrant green that only fully develops in the rain, and flowers are popping out all over the place. Tulips and daffodils and these little purple things that I suspect are crocuses, but I'm not gonna lie, I actually don't know what a crocus is.

Amidst all of this glorious color, we have patches of rich black. The bark of a wet tree, the black soil out of which the new flowers have emerged. The night sky, deeper and darker than before after a few seconds of sudden, lightening-strike day.

The black is life-giving, and sets off the richness of the brighter springtime colors. But it's beautiful in its own right. It's rich, it's moist, it's velvety, and it has a life of its own. Within the black are sparkling droplets of water, storm clouds a slightly lighter black than the sky at night, texture and variation. It captures shades of brown and blue and even green and pulls them into the dark, fathomless realm of black.