I haven’t been taking many walks due to days of cold, drizzly rain and a hurt back. All has improved now, though. The son and I went out for a two-mile stroll on this fine spring day, and I was so revivified I wrote a little poem about it.
First the photos:
Late Spring Walk
Forsythia and daffodil
Hellebores, Siberian squill,
Yellow, yellow, pink, and azure
After winter, winter, and winter
White and gray and gray
Spring returns one day
As we have faith it always will.
~~
It was funny — funny odd – after the time change last week that you couldn’t tell a difference around here. That’s because the sun didn’t come out from behind the clouds for about five days. It was like one continual night, with lots of rain. Kind of in tune with my spirits of late. Until yesterday, when things finally brightened.
Then came today, the first day of spring. I was able to walk in the sun this afternoon wearing jeans and t-shirt, no jacket. My son accompanied me. Once you get them through the teen years, they become willing to be seen with you again. They’ll even indulge you in things like stopping to snap pictures of new blossoms. I think this is a magnolia tree. Whatever it is, it made me happy.
Despite everything going on in the world with humans and viruses, spring is not in quarantine. It’s a little chilly here, but the sun is out for the first time in days, so I ventured out for some fresh air, taking a short walk around the neighborhood, maintaining space from the many other folks I saw out doing the same thing. To be honest, a friendly wave from the distance is my preferred level of social interaction with most of my neighbors in normal times. Not that I dislike any of them. I’m just awkward and introverted.
I found it interesting that I saw as many pedestrians as cars out today in my mile-and-a-half amble. There’s a silver lining, I suppose.
And there are a few little groceries coming up in my yard and others.
Henbit really is edible. I’ve snacked on the flowers myself a number of times. Check out Edible Wild Food for more information on which parts are safe to eat.
I’ve never researched magnolia trees, so I don’t know if they do anything other than look beautiful. If not, that’s enough. The blooms are starting to open.
The world continues to function, more or less. Humanity is only a part of it.
Peonies raise their many tight fists toward the sky. Within a week, the blooms will burst open.
A fun guy has found a place to hang out.
A maple tree really wants to propagate, but this doesn’t look like fertile ground to me.
I prefer spring blankets to winter ones.
We had a long, long, long, hard, hard, hard winter here. What walks I took were utilitarian and accomplished as quickly as possible, with no taking off of gloves to snap photos.
But spring has arrived at long last. I see color popping here and there, new blossoms, life re-emerging.
We hunkered down, endured through the gray and cold. Then one day, there were flowers.
Here it is mid-April and a good chunk of the country is freeezzzziiiinng. That Laura Ingalls Wilder book, “The Long Winter” is going to need to be renamed “The Longish Winter” now that there’s this one to compare it to.
But I’m soldiering on. I’m participating in the 30 Days of Biking April challenge by walking every day and calling it 30 Days of Walking. I’m participating in National Poetry Writing Month, informally, by writing a poem every day but keeping most of them to myself instead of linking to the official site. I guess I have a hard time conforming or something. Which is a segue to a poem I am going to share.
I hope to start an uprising, a rebellion if you will, called “Kick Winter Out of April.” Here’s the manifesto.
Mid-April Rebellion
Fine. I’ll hold off on planting vincas
but I won’t succumb to a parka.
The wind might chap my skin
but I won’t pretend it’s winter
when the calendar’s shown spring
for weeks. The hyacinth
and magnolia stand with me
in solidarity
if not heartiness.
Their blooms aren’t the best
this year, yet they make their stand.
I, too, go forth as planned –
no coat, no scarf, no hat.
Gooseflesh? Shivering? I’ve had worse than that.
I will not concede. My arms are bare!
I declare spring. So there!
Nomadic Noesis 