When spring drops at the flick of the world’s wrist,
and colors whirl in kaleidoscopic,
impressionistic hues with views
of greens gold as the pond powdered with pollen,
and golds green as the glittering hummingbird’s back,
buds bursting with hard candy
sprinkled from sky’s blue gingham pockets,
breast quivering, shimmering
inside her seasonal tenses,
presently accounting for
all this grandeur,
speckled and freckled and stippled,
like the nippled branches of trees
unfurling their ribbons of leaves
tasting like Snapple green apple,
like lemon-lime soda,
like absinthe in Paris
in the springtime, I fancy
all the world’s a-fizz
with fuzzy wings buzzing
with gossip, with bird call,
with the dapple and babble
of dawn.
And I’m here,
bearing witness
to the many-splendored blessings
from which this morning flows.
Just yesterday morning, rain clouds filled the sky in gray velvet folds draped heavy over the newly hatched woods, leaves shivering, sagging from the weight, the wait. The dogwood blossoms — bright as match flares – trembled, knowing soon they’d be doused, tender petals downed and drowned. The cardinal couple, wings flame-stitching the shadows as they lit from sod bank to branch and back again, banked on a breakfast cut short and shared their worm like Lady-and-the-Tramp pasta boiled well past its prime. While the cat, shoulders knuckled, crept toward them, one ear cocked to her prize, the other to the threatening cloudburst, the roll of thunder overhead. Then the clouds split wide –not with rain, but golden sun – showering treetops
in cream soda light,
leaves glowing lemon and lime,
blossoms blinding white
Today the same skies are different still, pale pink haze over lavender-blue, lying whisper-soft as an infant’s shawl above the feathered limbs of fizzy trees. The cat naps on her pillow. The dogwood blossoms tremble still, at the brevity of it all, the beauty of it all, as does the cardinal couple singing cheer, cheer, cheer through the
baby soft hiccup
of this morning’s scene, dogwood
blossoms losing steam
Last night it rained, leaving
white blossom shreds clinging to dogwood leaves, blown green in an instant.
Sodden confetti clots choke gutters and grass —
the pink and white remnants of an azalea bacchanalia.
The fringe tree shivers in the cold dawn,
tender bits dangling naked in the breeze.
Yesterday, brazen. Today, sore ashamed.
Spring has sprung and is already speeding by.
Time flies.
And so do the wasps, building paper condominiums in the downspouts,
and the birds canoodling in the newly upholstered trees.
And the clouds skirting the sky in vanishing wisps.
Time leaps, like the squirrel getting his nut in the damp underbrush,
or the froggie gone a courtin’ in the mud.
It sneaks like the snake shifting weight through the sod
One blink – or not, snakes don’t blink — then it’s gone.
One minute intact
Like the five pale shell casings
In their spun-twig armory in the clutch of the sapling
just waiting to explode
or turn from a sky blown blue as rhinestones, to a broiling gunmetal grey
The woods, dappled green as moss, spike fevers soon, destined to fall.
Life is ever-eager, ever-ready, ever-thrusting,
Till its not
All things
New and raw, soon fecund and fat, all grow, sting, decay and drop
But words the poets know remain
Words, the poets know, retain
the birdsong, the blue stone, the echoes of youth and the splashing rain,
the paper houses and paper dreams,
in still-lifes — so there’s still life
Long after it’s all blown away
It’s almost April. In Georgia, the sun is warm, the breeze is balmy, the azaleas are bursting to bloom. Trees are erupting in celadon halos, one after the other, scattering their dander far and wide. It settles on truck beds, on patios, on skin.
As I sit on my back deck, a hawk rides a thermal overhead, while all around me bees buzz, crows caw, wasps flit, dogs bark. The air is alive with life.
It’s also alive with COVID-19, floating unseen and unheard. Until it’s not. Until the coughing starts. The fevers mount.
My husband mows for the first time this season, dry dusty Bermuda silt floats in his wake, catches on the currents, dissipates in the breeze.
And so goes the virus… spittle and nasal exhaust swirling behind one person and into the unsuspecting path of another as they search the aisles for that ever-elusive toilet paper, their weekly ration of milk.
Eyes water, throats burn, lungs react. Is it the pollen — or the Corona?
How crazy is it that so much death and destruction can be carried in the same currents where so much evidence of life still swims?
If we could detect the virus the same way we can detect the pollen, there’s a high likelihood none of us would be out in public unless we had to be… needed to be… for the greater good. Like those heroes out there facing the public, willingly walking into the invisible wake of this pandemic to help their fellow man. They are selfless and intentional.
And we need to stop being selfish, intentional or otherwise.
We need to stop being stupid. Stop taking for granted the lives of the first responders, the nurses and doctors, the grocery clerks and food service folks, the heroes of this world as we now know it.
Not all of us are susceptible to pollen, but we are all susceptible to COVID-19. And at this point, we’ve all been impacted. If not with the virus, then with the fall out of the virus: lost incomes, lost school years, lost loved ones, lost life as we knew it.
As of this morning, more than 124,000 Americans have contracted the virus, and 2,100 Americans have died. Infectious disease expert Dr. Fauci predicts millions of cases in our homeland… and over 100,000 deaths.
It’s’ not all gloom and doom. We have beautiful spring days, full to bursting with new life. So I choose to revel in the earth’s breathtaking beauty. I’m enjoying my backyard, my driveway, the woodland path with the violets sprouting underfoot…
But these days are also full of breathtaking danger. So I respect that danger. I avoid my neighbors, my family members across county, the siren call of social gatherings and the false sense of security because it’s warm and gorgeous outside.
It’s so easy to convince myself that all is right with the world.
But it’s not.
Stop being selfish. Stop being naive. Stay out of the wake of this pandemic. So that more of us may wake tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, and eventually we may wake to a more normal world once again.
Stay Home. And Stay Healthy, my friends.
Daffodils have long been my favorite flower. They are so bright and agreeable after months and months of a long, dreary winter. Their green leaves slice through the grays and browns of a dormant landscape just when the winter blues have taken hold of our spirits. And then they burst into flame like scattered stars of the Milky Way that have crash landed in ditches, back pastures, and lawns. There is no method to their majesty, no discrimination in their display.
Their blossoms are seasonal exhibitionists – like tiny ballet dancers in gilded tutus. Like leggy blondes with teased bouffant hair. Like blousy maidens, large cupped and small cupped and double cupped, baring their tender tips – platinum, rose-gold, caramel, amber, and peach — to the swollen March skies.
How could I not love daffodils? Not only are they bright and ballsy, they’re cultivated from myth and propagated by poets. A veritable Who’s Who of literature is tangled round their tempting trumpets. Narcissus, and Wordsworth, Hughes and Plath – the flowers feature prominently in their lives and legends. Elizabeth Barrett Browning even has a variety named after her.
The first time I caught daffodil fever, I was seven. There was an antebellum mansion about five houses down from our house, and its lawn was speckled gold with their glory. I was mesmerized. I had to have them. But I was terrified of the dragon-lady caretaker who guarded that property with ferocity. Every time we ventured onto the drive on our bikes, she instantly appeared on the doorstep and roared at us, her voice crackling brimstone and fire. But I wanted that sparkling gold treasure…
So I did what all rational seven-year-olds with unhealthy hankerings do: I sacrificed my sister. My kid sister. My tow-headed, toddler kid sister with pudgy pink cheeks and soft, dimpled elbows and knees. I figured no one – wicked, scaly curmudgeon included — would ever harm someone as darn stinkin’ cute as Jo Jo. It was unthinkable and unlikely, and improbable. She was just too darn stinkin’ cute.
I hid behind a parked Chevy station wagon while baby sis innocently plundered and pillaged those prize daffodils, her curls and the blooms bobbing with each successful snap. She’d collected nearly a dozen when the shadowy shapeshifter appeared from nowhere and snatched her up in a rough, wrinkled claw. I cringed and hid, and when I found the courage to peer round the bumper again, both the beast and my sister were gone.
The worst had happened. The unthinkable. The unlikely. The improbable. It had happened. A dragon had swallowed up my sis in its lair. What should I do? Should I ride home for help? Ring the bell and risk my own life? Set fire to the woods and wait for the first responders? While I stood, rooted to the asphalt in terror and guilt, the front door slowly yawned open. Out of the darkness, a bright, tiny figure, haloed in white-gold curls, emerged. In her hands was the stolen bouquet. She toddled carefully, one pink patent step at a time until she reached the edge of the porch, then she turned back and did what any three-year old who just stole flowers from an historic landmark would do, she asked for help down the stairs. I had been right. She was just too stinkin’ cute to hurt.
I’ll never forget my kid-sister’s bravery and sacrifice that March morning so long ago. You would think that after such a close-call, my passion for the buttery blossoms would’ve waned. Not so. On the contrary, it only fueled my addiction.
My passion is slightly unhealthy. Those blooms give me fever. Some people claim to have a spirit animal. Me, I would be so bold as to call the daffodil my spirit annual (only they’re perennial. But still…) Like a spirit, they have me completely possessed. I may have once – although I would never swear to it – I may have once pulled up a blooming bulb from the damp, fecund soil of a rather celebrated southern writer’s homestead. I couldn’t help myself. I am an addict. He was one too, although of a different sort. Still, I think he would understand.
So, this weekend, my three fellas and I went to Gibbs Gardens in North Georgia to visit their famed daffodils and to feed my addiction. They have acres and acres and acres of them, spilled across a wooded hilltop like leprechaun’s gold. It was riveting. The stuff of legend. The impetus of poetry. The foundation of faith. A field with flickering tongues of fire, a hilltop aflame with prophecy and promise. I felt cleansed. I felt renewed.
I didn’t steal a single one.
Though, Lord, I was sorely tempted.
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