Too Early for Spring

But no one has told
snowdrops (in all fairness, last year they bloomed winter to fall)
Lenten roses
crocus
daffodils
fuchsia
cherry
forsythia
star magnolia

What am I leaving out?

Oh yeah. A freeze.

Bound to happen.

Like Going Home Again

This is where it started: love of flowers.
Like going home, but really at home.

(If you're unable to see the slideshow, see the photos here.)

Such an Improvement!

Dear W. S.,

Since you came to the University, the grounds have finally starting catching up to the beauty of the buildings and natural surroundings. I really love your work!

I know I spoke to you just a few weeks ago when we ran into each other on the new downtown trail. I thanked you then for the work you've accomplished here, but today I was so startled and delighted as I came off the highway that I went home, changed clothes, and headed right back (before the rain) to snap a few pictures.

Ever since the main entrance to campus was re-routed and the huge stone (and concrete?) sign went up with its bluish light thrown from a lumpy black box, I have averted my eyes and driven further down before turning off. 

Today I didn't.

The sea of daffodils (also found in abundance on the campus this year) and the flood of crocus (I stopped counting at 63) have turned what I think is an eyesore into a welcome springtime delight.

Soon it'll be odonate time, and I look forward to running into at one of the lakes.

With appreciation,
Robley

That Time of Year

when the woods bloom daffodils;
they poke their yellow heads
heavy with rain
up through sodden clumps
of weed and grass,
between fallen limbs
lifting spring from winter's mess.

By Any Name

My mother loved jonquils, but whether all the spring flowers of yellow, cream, white, and orange, with big or small trumpets, double or single heads were jonquils or daffodils, I don't know: I know only that she called them jonquils, and that there hundreds, if not thousands, of them, spilling down the leaf-scattered woodsy hill in front of our house and in the rolling trough between our neighbor's house and ours, and that they made spring springy, and that I loved them as much as she, so much in fact that I would sit among them or lie among them and feel myself happy. That's the way I have felt every time over the last weeks when I catch sight of them in my yard or another's, or on the kitchen window sill, the blouson flower heads and pin-striped petals reminding me of childhood and of my mother.

Narcissus stared at himself, finding himself so beautiful in reflected water that he died, still fixed to his own image. I might not mind dying so much if the last thing I saw was a daffodil or jonquil or narcissus, or a field of them, waving and nodding in a spring breeze, the sun behind them, but itself not visible, so that the flower or flowers seem to generate their own light, burning to the last.

At the Halls

like old friends,
daffodils --
veined, thinning --
grow still
more beautiful 
& vibrant 
even as they
age, nod, & fall
over the lip
of vase.

My Green Age

Despite my years, 
I feel my green age 
in spring, lying aground
among last year's leaves 
and this year's flowers.

Dylan Thomas - The Force That Through The Green... by poetictouch

Moisture

At dusk, one daffodil weeps, moisture and stamen belonging to one head and trumpet among hundreds. Runners and wanderers and dog exercisers in Abbo's Alley wander by, none noticing what the camera catches.

For me that's the delight of taking snapshots, capturing what's there but unseen.

For me, that's the delight of a great poem, like Ezra Pound's "In a Station of the Metro":

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

This flounced daffodil: an old lady, weeping with joy.

A Clump of Blooms

Sometimes, all it takes to make one feel better are a few late winter blooms, like these in my neighbor's yard.They're not in my yard, but I enjoy them just the same!

A Promise of Spring

Over the last week, the temperature has been unseasonably warm, even approaching the 70s. We've had uninterrupted sun, and gentle rain, and downpours, and even the threat of tornadoes.

I know that spring isn't here. I know that more winter is coming. We'll probably even have more snow.

But.

The daffodils have poked up their sturdy leaves and fattening teardrop buds. Soon, yards and woods will be littered with yellow and cream and orange and chartreuse blossoms. (My favorite daffodils in my yard open buds like the scrambled-eggs one toward the back right of this photograph, which I took today.)For as long as I can remember, I have loved daffodils. My mother called them jonquils, a word choice perhaps stemming from her Virginia roots. She planted and separated and re-planted hundreds of bulbs in our hilly, woody front yard. In our neighbors' forested front yard, running down a rolling hill toward us and the creek, thousands of daffodils bloomed, of every color and size and shape imaginable. As a little girl, I lay among them, drew them, colored them, dreamed, and later photographed them, again and again, never getting my fill of daffodil. Now, I try to pretend I'm more mature. However, I must admit to a fluttering when I see them pop up so heartily. Soon, I remind myself, soon. Soon I'll have another outrageous bunch like these (from last year):I shall not be disappointed.