hope

Le Notre and I are busy. He walks around my yard, leaning on the gold-headed cane gifted him by Louis XIV, and commands me to prune and pick up and plant. I love it when he visits. It’s that time of year, when my yard becomes a siren, and I lured to toil. It’s good to put one’s hands in soil, to dig and rake and straighten. To put a seed down. Seeds are the epitome of hope. I need hope in these days of my aging. It’s my botox.

Advertisement

tender

It’s that tender time of year, sweetness showing in the new green of grass and tree buds. The redbud and tulip tree define the city in such tender colors: not quite purple, not quite pink for the tulip tree. And as for the redbud, even the thesaurus can’t summon a tint to match its beauty: amethyst, wine, madder, violet, none of them quite fit.

New beginnings, birth, rebirth, that’s what spring signifies. What will you begin? What project or life goal have you put off? What in you needs to be birthed? What in you needs to be born again, this time into a kinder frame? When the green shading of  the grass is so clear it hurts to see, it’s life itself prompting us to unfurl, move, shake, grow, dare. Can you, will you….and what?

Tender

Houston springs are tender. There’s just no other word for them. Soft days and soft nights. Coming brutal humidity and heat remain last summer’s dream. I think I become emotional and tender myself because I know what’s around the corner. But for now, it’s spring. Pink tulip trees and redbuds have been the first to announce blooming time. The sweet color of their blossoms is impossible to describe: amethyst in which rose had been swirled. Azaleas and bridal wreath follow. Trees bud and leaf, and in a month Houston will be a cloud of green from the sky.  Here’s what Houston’s soft spring does to me:

gardeners are busybodies

always peering out their windows

at the roses to demand:

have they bloomed yet?

 

cream edged in coral

I steal indescriminately

my neighbor’s roses

 

magnolia blossoms

open tight buds to reveal

deep creamy faces

 

what do butterflies

think when they race? does it

matter who wins?