The tenderest yellow-green glow of the elms lining the canal in front of my house. That’s my cue that spring has arrived. When the buds catch a ray of light they turn a deep golden green. It makes me think of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 98. From you have I been absent in the spring,When proud-pied April dress’d in all his trimHath put a spirit of youth in every thing,That heavy Saturn laugh’d and leap’d with him.Yet nor the lays of birds nor the sweet smellOf different flowers in odour and in hue Could make me any summer’s story tell, Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew;Nor did I wonder at the lily’s white, Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;They were but sweet, but…