The hay field changes every week in the growing season, and in North Carolina the wild growing season starts in winter. By February, I’m seeing these tiny flowers everywhere in low grass, by the side of the road, in my ragged lawn, a promise of coming spring. Such a bright blue! Smaller than my smallest fingernail. Hopeful, upright, the color of the sky, they remind me that once I was a child, low to the ground myself, noticing everything.