one morning

I was on the bus going through Stockholm, glad to be ashore after the sleepless night in the blind darkness of my cheap cabin.
The day was beginning and the air was raw and cold, but still it felt like spring, and if you opened the window you could tell the water was close.
The city looked washed, its narrow and lonely streets clean as if after the rain. Here and there the pale pink clouds of cherry blossoms seemed to be stuck in the trees, getting a little thinner with every burst of wind.
On the bus with me there was a boy who kissed a girl for the very first time. He didn't know what to do with it yet, surrounded by his friends, wild, joyful and loud, like he was just the day before, when we took the bus in Turku.
And yet, uncertain and shy as he was, at times he had a smile, a feeling, an expression coming to his face, that blended so well with the sight of the sleepy city, waking to the clean cold morning. There was a promise - an empty street, a cherry tree bud, an uncertain smile - a promise of beauty that is subtler and finer than beauty itself.