spring hope

Welcome Home

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These two darlings came to the tree outside my window today. One even hopped onto my balcony and turned his head this way and that, wondering who was so interested in him and his mate. I have been in this apartment, my new home, for eight days and I am starting to feel a little more comfortable. The arrival of these two, however, lifted my heart in a special way. I love the song of the robin in Spring. It is a sort of fluting, longing note that sounds like a yearning coming straight from the heart. Frankly, I have had enough of yearning, enough of longing and so was so happy to see these two, already set up as a pair – or so it seemed to me.

As I left my old home, where I had lived for almost twenty-two years, I noticed two dreadfully neglected flower pots. I know they had not had a drop of water all winter as they were in a stairwell leading to the back yard which I had not used at all during the snowy winter. There they sat, quite forlorn with a few withered leaves hanging down. What made me notice tiny green shoots in both pots I wonder? Without hesitation I picked them up and hauled them to the new place. They seem to be turning into tulips.

There is a hopefulness about the two beloved birds, about the neglected flower pots harbouring new life, about the tree near my balcony that will soon be full of fresh green leaves. I’m going to emerge from this long winter into something that looks like Spring too.

At Last

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image

Hello pale blossom.
Hello damp cool green beauty
so frail, so delicate
forcing your frail delicate way up through
dark dense earth.
Hello faint hope, hello rebirth
hello vanquisher of winter,
pale bell that heralds all the rest.
Golden trumpets and scarlet or dark frilled tulips
and later roses, lilies , dahlias and exuberant vines.
You, small and modest are first.
Herald of change, of relief from cold and dark.
Hello snowdrop and welcome.

Old favourites …and a new star

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The first day of tulips.  On Thursday I saw showy magnolias for the first time in my town , open and, already falling, falling.  Today in the little city back garden my tulips opened and with them a beauty I have been wondering about for weeks.  Would it survive two significant snowfalls after a couple of mild teaser days in April?  Seems it would….and has!  Now all I have to worry about are the horrid red bugs that attack lilies.  This beautiful brave thing, a fritillia, must be of the lilly family as I have already seen a couple of hungry insects.  I promptly dispatched them to insect heaven.  For beauty to thrive, death must play a part.

On this day before the bear trap that is Mother’s Day, sitting in my sunny kitchen under the mild gaze of Our Lady of Guadalupe and thinking about the miracle of fritillia.