Orange

is a color I know well as the daughter of a paint manufacturer whose original cans wore orange labels with a black silhouette of the Birmingham skyline around the bottom. Daddy's tale of receiving a single orange as a special treat in his Christmas stocking struck me as strange until I learned enough of history in the first quarter of the 20th century to know how rare and precious that gift must have been for a little boy.
Today, my rare and precious gift arrived in orange. In the window box, their faces battered, their ruffles fluttering and stems bending, two pansies trumpeted a kind of Christmas-coming of light.Tonight, the clock leaps forward and we leap one more step into spring.

Let it come in orange!