Fields of Flowers
“…But flowering trees still showed their clear design
Against the pale
blue brightness chilled like wine
And I was praying
all the time I walked,
While starlings
flew about, and talked, and talked
Somewhere and
everywhere life spoke the word
The dead trees
woke, each bush held its bird…”
May Sarton (excerpted
from Earth Prayers, p.294, Elizabeth Roberts, Elias Amidon, Harper San Francisco,
1991)
Yesterday, Isie and I walked the Shades
Creek greenway for over an hour. The fields of Small’s Ragwort bloomed like
gangbusters almost the entire length, and the trees glowed that pale new-life
green of springtime. What a magical sight! I halfway expected to encounter a
unicorn grazing by the creek. A great gray heron flew up and over us. A tornado
felled tree on the ground, its silvery limbs sawed off and stripped of leaves
and bark, could have been the bones of an ancient mastodon. That field of
golden flowers made us both commented that we felt like Dorothy in Oz.
As I have written before, nature is my
cathedral, and yesterday felt like worship. After this long, interminable year
of pandemic, spring is such a treat. To be vaccinated and feel safe enough to
walk the greenway for an hour was more appreciated than a any trip to an exotic
island I could imagine. We wore masks, of course, but the beauty of new life
made up for the discomfort.
David Brooks article in the New York Times,
“How Covid Can Change Your Personality,” about all that we have lost to Covid
19, including our laughter, is worth a read. He approaches the lost year with
sensitivity, writing in personal terms of the many small losses—meeting
friends at a favorite coffee shop, having communal celebrations for weddings, sharing
grief and remembrances at funerals, having friends over for dinner—the little things
that define us as a people. If this year has been difficult for adults, it has
been miserable for teens and children, isolated from their friends and classmates
for what seems to them an eternity. It has been a terrible year that has
changed us in many ways.
I want to believe that this suffering has
made us stronger. History tells us that is the case; that we come out of times
of societal challenge stronger, smarter, and more appreciative of what we once
took for granted. I pray that is so. By this time next year, we will know whether
Covid has changed us in ways that are permanent. In the meantime, let us simply
enjoy this beautiful, early, chilly spring. Let us walk in the sunshine, beside
fields of yellow daisies, thrill to the birdsong and offer prayers of deep
gratitude.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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