What smells of spring? Many scientists and poets are trying to answer this question. Spring must be defined for this purpose. For most people the spring’s entry schedule marks. This year on 20 March. A few will check the time at which this entry occurs, this year at 10:37 of our March 20 clock. It happens every year between 19 and 21 March. Someone will ask why that time is, and they will know that at that moment the turn of the sun that we see on the horizon is up to the equator. From then on, in our northern hemisphere the day is longer than the night. This is the scientific measurement. I love the most poetic.

For some, the traces that spring is here are different. Some are vestiges associated with animals (“spring changes blood”, says the saying): when the cat gets on the shore (“February, gatuil”) or the donkey on “May, donkey and litter”), or when oppressed couples start their noisy flying dance.

Many look at plants. A neighbor of mine willow (Salix spp.) He lives in winter until he sees it flourishing. Another will not believe that spring has settled until the oak (Quercus robur) is seen in bloom. I have heard a couple of women who are engaged in the new era: for one era the white flowering of the black hawthorn (Prunus spinosa), for the other the white flowering of the maaltza (Pyrus pyraster) (“in the fall, in the fall, grapes”). The crédulos of the white hawthorn (Crataegus spp.) Without the intoxicated smell of fragrances of aromatic flowering, they will not abandon their winter clothes.

The colour footprint is evident in the spring of our landscape. Because if we took a tree or a plant, each site would have a spring. And by the way, every plant has its own spring. For example, around our house there are robles completely populated with leaves, even in bloom, and others, yet, have no more than the tip of their leaves in their open eyes.

I see the whole of one and the other and their circumstances. Look at your nose and smell what I see. Yes, spring has its special scent. It is what the earth releases when it rains; it is called geosmin (geosm-like land and osm-odor). These are, above all, bacteria that are linked to their spread. This smell will attract those who will eat it and open it. It's the smell of duration, the smell of hope. A new sweat will awaken the joys and enthusiasm of most plants. Mine leave, because summer is here...

With spring, the poet also triumphed. That's what Ursula K says. Le Guin said: “Science describes it from the outside with rigor, poetry describes it from the inside with rigor. Science explains it, poetry brings it with it. They both welcome what has been described. We need the language and poetry of science, to save ourselves from the infinite agglomerations of data that do not serve us to heal the ignorant or the guilt.”