Like upturned circus tents

for The Borrowers, my five small sets of crocus quietly open and close beneath the bare azalea limbs.

There are so many things to love about crocus:

• hardy blooming in sun and warm temperatures, freezing temperatures and snow
• reliable return each year 
• spread into their little patches like small gossip groups
• cheerful deep purple and preppie stripes
• orange tongues
• pollen polyps like polka dots
• sun-shadowed cups

Recently, I have seen (in several places) beautiful photographs of tulip fields in the Netherlands, and I dream of planting crocus everywhere in the yard, creating my own swath of Seurat to enjoy each winter/spring. This fall, perhaps, will see the beginning of something big.

Meantime, I'll enjoy the something small that makes me smile, going and coming.

Boxwood

Wander into a boxwood alley on a chilly day and the skin warms.

For me, the mind warms, too, in memory.

When we visited my maternal grandparents in Virginia, I escaped under the giant boxwood near the side porch where the adults gathered to talk. I sat cross-legged under the low branches, inhaling the lemony scent of small leaves woven together like a screen. I imagined Borrowers-like creatures lived among the limbs and roots, and I wanted to become one of them. Outside the shade, my mother's and her parents' rounded Virginia vowels rode toward me in a low vibration like a joyful wave.

I could have stayed there happily, hidden under the boxwood, just as I wish I had been able to stay today under this canopy today.