Category: Spring 2023

I sit on the porch on this mild afternoon
with the birdsong floating on the breeze
through the slightly moist air, the sky adrift
with soft clouds. A yellow swallowtail
pirouettes through the branches of the spruce.
I have but one thought: This is Spring’s last day.
And look how softly she says farewell
as she drifts away, leaving a world of green
where none was when she came.
The woodlands bow their rustling leaves
to her as she passes by. Beyond the meadow,
strewn now with daisies, the creek sings.
I think this hymn is an anthem of thanks,
and of joy, and my heart joins in the song.

Everything is possible. The rain-dreams of trees,
for example, can summon rain on a late spring day.
The wishes of butterflies open the petals of flowers.
Send a loving thought anywhere; it will find its way.
Dream of peace, and you will feel it unfold,
spacious and free, in your very own heart.
Today I heard the sky song of the year’s last iris.
Ask anything of the dawn. Everything is possible.

“Just one last thing,” says spring, packing to go.
She floats over to the Joe Pye Weed, already
over three feet tall, and sweeps a breeze
across the tops of them, ever so gently.
“Wake up, darlings,” she sings to them,
“It’s time.” And the tips of them dance
as if they suddenly sensed that they’re alive.

Sometimes it amazes me that I get to see this.
That there’s a this to see, and not just any this,
but this this. And every time it happens it’s new,
even if I’m in the same place as the last time
and that was just a minute ago.
I get to see this.
It’s the middle of June and the leaves of the trees
are green and full and deep. From this particular one,
delicate blossoms cascade, simple and sweet,
and the romantic in me sees them as wedding flowers.
June, croon, honeymoon. I think that’s how it goes.
But here, as I wake from my dream, white flowers cascade.
And I get to see them.

When springtime was brand new
and the green just beginning
to rise from the earth and the tips
of the trees, something inside me
whispered, “Green is so healing.”
I remember thinking it was a good thing
that spring would bring so much of it,
for we are in such need. This is a world
of wounded ones. No one escapes
their share of injury, sorrow, loss.
But the pain that breaks our shell
opens the door to new perceptions.
We see what we long for, what matters,
what doesn’t, what still remains.
We rest, absorbing the meanings,
pondering what tomorrow might hold.
And as we rest, the green floats in
with its abundance of hope, and
its breezes full of healing. And we
go on, renewed, deepened, and strong.
It’s quite the plan, wouldn’t you say?

Every year about this time, yellow flag irises bloom
on the far shore of the lake, beneath the pines.
Normally, they’re rising from a few inches of water.
But this year, when we have gone over two weeks without rain,
I could follow the nearly invisible trail the deer make down
to the water’s edge where they grow, looking like angels
floating on tall stems above the marsh, wild forget-me-nots
surrounding them as if to catch and memorize their songs.
I approach them slowly, lest I startle them into flying away.
Then I stand silent and unmoving before the nearest one,
holding my breath, listening as she hovers mid-air.
She is singing her golden heart out, and the notes cascade
down my spine in waves of electric joy.

This is an acrylic painting I did almost three decades ago
and a piece I wrote to go with it.

None of the daisies saw the field the same way. Some watched the sky, some watched the birds, some gazed at the leaves in the trees. Some talked with the tiny flowers next door, some chatted with grass and some with clover.

Some bent to the east and some to the south, and others looked every which way in between. Some were tall and peered from the top of long stems. Some were wee, barely knee-high to the others.

Some were awake, and some were dreaming. Some laughed at the tickle of bees gathering their pollen. Some giggled at the tiny ants that climbed on their petals and leaves.

The Great Yes wants to experience life from every possible perspective, you see. That’s why there are countless stars and snowflakes. That’s why there’s eternity. Even a month full of daisies, stretched as far as the eye can see, are but a flicker of the whole. And yet, the Great Yes wouldn’t be what it is without them, every single one.

Every now and then, as if to reassure us,
the sun slides through an opening in the clouds.
It keeps us from falling into pits of gloom
as we slog through this endless spell of rain.

If you grab one of those precious sunny hours
and walk the path, now deep with wet grasses,
that runs between the meadow and the woods.
you find that the wild things are thriving.

Flowers bloom, buds burst, plump seeds
prepare to fly. Grasshoppers hop;
butterflies float from blossom to blossom.
The leaves on the trees are washed and shining.
And across the creek tilled fields
sprout emerald rows of corn and beans.

You can’t stay long, of course. Already clouds
are gathering for another blow. And besides,
you’re soaked up to your knees. But still,
you’ve seen the rain’s work and it’s good,
and your mouth tastes of fresh sunshine.

A forest of ferns stretches deep into the woods
past the birches with their white, papery bark, and the others,
familiar, yet not the same. It’s the ferns that draw my attention
with their height and their strong, straight fronds,
so different from the soft, lacy ones that cover the hill
to the south of my home, yet dancing into the forest
in the same way. And the forest is different, too, the trees
here cousins to those outside my door and growing
on flat land, not climbing the slope of a hill. It ‘s as if
the earth suddenly changed clothes just to delight
in the differences and to celebrate the theme.

The gardens sing a different song each day.
I tiptoe out to see them in the morning as if I’m sneaking
down the stairs on Christmas Day, eager to see
what surprises arrived in the night, never doubting
that surprises would have, indeed, appeared.
I take it as a fact, like the sun’s floating up right over
that hill, right there, still earlier every morning.
Sometimes the surprises stop me in my tracks,
make me suck in a lung full of air and hold it
as I stare, wide-eyed, at some new wonder.
This week, for instance, the blue ruffled irises got me.
But look here, at today’s gift, a scattering of polka dots
that make it impossible for me not to laugh. I stop
and thank them for being such a happy patch of smiles.