Snows flew and swirled about the month of March, biting frost and cold mornings announcing the days; thaw and mud wrapped about a promise of spring. A sudden surprise, as though we had forgotten, in greens and buds pushing through what seems to be the last of the big cold, appears in strips of grass that line the meridians and creep from the edges of curbs into lawn and meadow.
A box was delivered on Saturday. I had ordered some small French pots for the front porch, anticipating the garden center at Home Depot and an afternoon where I could feel the sun on my back as I bent over them with soil and flowers. I like to arrange things on my porch; a wreath of dried spring flowers, pots and planters filled with colors and blooms; a welcoming to guests—“look life is happening here and inside. There is beauty in our world.”
I remember a Sunday morning, decades ago—an Easter choir at the Unity Church I attended in Santa Monica, California. We practiced for a couple of months “Morning has broken, like the first morning. Black bird has spoken, like the first bird.” I always felt that we were singing in the spring. Yesterday as I drove back from the grocery store, I was singing, watching my car thermometer inch up from 39-degrees to 50 by the time I got home…singing in the spring. This Easter, church is in the meadow where I go with my dog. I feel much more at home giving thanks to a miraculous world where geese provide the sermon; where rising water in the creek tells the story of death and re-birth than I do in a building committing to story that I can find alive and fluid in the natural world.
It’s too soon to plant, but I have unwrapped the pots where I can see them and imagine them filled with pretty flowers. Buds have appeared on the lanky arms of the berry bushes just off of the deck and I know that in a short time, diaphanous green will grace the trees. Sometimes in January I envy my Southern California friends and their 68-degree beach weather—but I don’t think I would trade that for the cycles of the seasons that teach me over and over about life renewing itself.
Sunshine and blue skies today, warm and happy weather that will dip into colder tones tomorrow. I walk the trail and say thank you, holding fast to the imagination a brilliant green that will soon become the color of this temple.