As if the fragrant blossoms weren’t enough, a yellow swallowtail came to sip the lilac’s nectar. She was the first I had seen this year, regal and lovely as she fluttered from flower to flower on her delicate wings. Once more, I found myself catching my breath in astonished wonder that such a thing could be, right before my eyes, in this heady, perfumed May air.
I understand the benevolence of the sky, a single cloud of tarnished silver floating from horizon to horizon. It’s gift, the dimming of the light, and the way the rain diffuses it so that the woods is veiled, as if in mist. Here, the hillside is awash in emerald green so intense that you could hardly stand to look at it, so suddenly appearing, if it were drenched in sunlight. it’s enough, just as it is, to make you draw your breath, inhaling its hue and the taste of a cold May rain.
That the branches of bare trees erupt with bursting buds simply because, so they tell us, the planet’s axis has tipped toward the sun, is one wonder. A larger one, it seems to me, is that we walk past, heedless, hardly noticing such marvels at all. What a fantastic world, where miracles occur in such profusion that we barely give them a ho-hum!
She dreams, on a frosty morning, that she is migrating with the wild geese. The wake of air that trails from their wings makes tunnels of spinning light as they stroke into the frozen dawn, their calls echoing against the cold.
Ahead, she sees the bay of a great lake, solid now, a flat steel gray, and she falls with a flurry of downy white flakes to its ice-heaped edges. Near the shore, winter reeds pen haiku with invisible ink on fresh snow.
An Irish setter walks past, stopping to read the lines, burying his nose in them. “Bailey!” a woman calls from a house that sits on a rise above the shore. “Bailey! Come!” And the dog trots off.
As a pale pink sun pushes above the horizon, its light spiraling in tunnels through the falling snow, the calls of geese echo from across the bay. She wakes, and finds a gray feather resting on her pillow, glistening with snow.
More rain is in the forecast, maybe mixed with a bit of snow. Even now the clouds have gathered in the western sky. The sleeping fields dream beneath puddles and frost, oblivious of the weather. But we, who have gone long days without a glimpse of sun, danced today under great swaths of blue sky, counting it as a gift and a blessing.
I hadn’t been to this section of the creek in a long time, maybe not since the autumn of last year. Today I came here on a whim, wanting a new perspective, not of the creek, although I would welcome that, too. No, it was something larger, and deeper, I sought, something to dispel the wistful melancholy that wrapped me like some dim veil. It happens every fall. The year, after all, is coming to its end, all it held rushing away.
The blast of cold air that struck me as I emerged from my warm car woke me, Startled I breathed it in, I took in the whole scene with a sweep of my eyes. The pines, the hill with its bare trees and the fallen leaves spilling down to the rocky creek, and the creek itself, singing in the cold. I didn’t name things. I tasted and smelled them and felt them on my skin and heard their silence and sounds. I saw the motion of it all, the constant change, all choreographed. And how perfect the light!
I walked along the creek for a while, noticing the details, noticing that my face wore a smile and my eyes felt alive, as if they had awakened just now from some deep sleep. And so they had.
You never know in the morning what a day will hold. Surprises almost always lurk in the folds of its hours, some welcome, some not. But both are gifts to you, even those that come disguised as setbacks or misfortune. One rewards; the other teaches. Take this flower, a scarlet nasturtium, that yesterday, before it bloomed, I had almost covered with mulch for the winter, but didn’t. Beneath its fat, green, lily-pad leaves I saw its tiny bud, full of life and hope. This morning it beamed its thanks and whispered, “Never, ever give up.”
I pluck these ripe, juicy days as if they were berries and heap them in my basket of remembrances to contemplate on cold, winter days. I’ll sit with snow drifting outside my window and recall these fields filled with bees and wildflowers and remember the steamy heat and how the sun burned my neck and nose.
I’ll remember the fragrance of it, the carrot smell of Queen Anne’s lace, the dry honey of the goldenrod. And I’ll see this golden field with its crown of Joe-Pye Weed standing tall against the deep green woods, waltzing in the breeze.
It may not entirely warm me. But it will tell me to hold on and remind me that even snow doesn’t last forever.
It was one of those summer days that the geese tucked into their memory stores to recount to one another on long, winter nights. They would remind each other how they sat on the lawn and ate their fill of the bugs that crawled between the blades of grass. On those cold, dark nights, they would remind each other of the wonderful smell of the newly mown grass and luscious white clover.
Normally, the humans filled the park. But they disappeared in the rain as if it would melt them and rain had fallen all morning long and threatened to return. So the geese had the place to themselves. And they sat on the earth amidst the waves of grass and preened themselves, and slept and dreamed, wrapped in the green luscious smell of it all, breathing it into their hearts to hold for the days when the grass slept beneath a blanket of soft, sparkling snow.
Because words alone cannot tell you, child, how much you mean to me, how I cherish you, how I laugh with you in your joy, how I weep with you in your sorrow, please accept this small token of my love.
May its tenderness whisper to you of the gentleness with which I hold you in my heart. May its beauty prove to you that, even in a world strewn with trials and thorns, you are not forgotten.
I, who create worlds upon worlds, know your name. I dance within your every breath. I know your every thought and each of your desires. I am with you in your suffering and in your hours of celebration.
Because words cannot contain me, I send you this token of my love. May its fragrance sing to your soul and bring you peace.