swallows return, doing aerial dances between nest boxes
skunk cabbage blooms along wet edges
two mating owls screech an eerie yet beautiful lullaby long past my bedtime
Day Two:
lily bulbs sprout through the soil in my garden bed
dawn opens with red skies
Day Three:
mason bees begin their nesting work
a rhododendron bud elongates to two inches
the nighttime temperature drops into the low 40s
Day Four:
vine maple leaves unfold and lengthen
wind shivers the fir boughs all afternoon
the eastern sky darkens to steel-gray at dusk while the western sky glows a wan golden
Day Five:
morning flowers open on the apple tree outside my office window
trillium flowers appear alongside the hiking path on the forest floor
the season’s first dandelions rise out of tall grass
In my sleep a few nights ago, I witnessed a miracle. In the dream, I was peering very closely at a tightly-folded flower bud. This maroon bud began to peel itself open petal by petal in just a few minutes. The incredibly gorgeous red flower grew larger and more complex as it became fully-unfurled. I exclaimed aloud in the dream: Wow! It’s like time-lapse photography except that this is real!
There were moments this week when it seemed as if the springtime glories just suddenly happened in an instant. I’ve been paying close attention, so I wondered how I had missed the growing process: bare limbs seemingly sprouted leaves without wearing buds first; temperatures seemed to jump rather than ease their way up or down; creatures just appeared settled in rather than having traveled to and chosen sites on this property; bulbs seemingly popped through soil rather than having cracked their way gently through the soil; growth seemed rampant and sudden rather than slowly incremental …
This springtime is like a dream. Except that the world of nature truly is alive, awake, burgeoning!
(Orig. posted Apr 2019)
