the song crescendoes to its last chorus as she nears the top of the hill, grassy plains opening wide to a sky dotted with whispers of rainclouds. rolling cymbals release, steady ascending scale reaching the tonic note, a pretense of placid permanence leading into a cinching minor chord.

melody dims to a repeated verse again. 5 o' clock sun is still only past its highest point of passage, but that's relative, isn't it, because the sun is ever-revolving in an unshapely oval, route calculated, preordained.

the last time she was here, yellow wildflowers dotted the 90 acres of green hills, bracing against ocean breezes and seeking warmth, turning heads toward the golden gate bridge as the sun set between its two arches.

she wonders how many feet stepped upon the overgrown grass, the wedges of second-hand shoes that stifled stubborn wildflowers of their spring bloom; not even the frequent february showers could breathe in the life those steps smothered out.

not yet out of winter's grasp, but too close to spring's embrace to deny its forthcoming. those wildflowers' times fell just short of the warm welcome that spring so readily gives out.

playlist on repeat. they're instrumentals, but the genres range to broadly for her to settle on a certain mood. are her emotions in the shallow tides challenging the tangle of stacked rocks at the shore? amongst the flattened, limp grass that people tread upon? within the corpses of wildflower, inches below newly laid soil? only the bass drum earnestly beats on, tying together the empty spell from the end of one song to another's beginning.