But to ask what months are spring is to ask a deeper question: When does something begin to change? When does the return of life become undeniable?
The months of spring are: whenever you notice. Whenever you stop bracing against the cold and feel, even for a moment, the strange and unreasonable hope rising from the dirt.
Spring is not a date. It is a threshold — a slow, patient rebellion against the stillness of winter. The first crocus pushing through frozen soil may arrive in late February, long before March has earned its name. By May, the world may already feel like summer’s preamble: heavy with pollen, long with light, restless with heat. The calendar months are just scaffolding we built around an unfolding mystery.
So perhaps the real answer is this: spring has no months. Spring is a verb. It happens when the frozen heart of the world remembers how to beat again. We try to name its months to comfort ourselves, to pretend that transformation fits neatly between March 1 and May 31. But spring slips the frame every time. It begins before we are ready. It ends before we are done.