Spring

 

Year after year, Spring manages to surprise.  For long weeks in Winter it seems as if nothing will ever change on the leafless trees and bare ground.  Then suddenly there’s a mild, sunny day and things start popping up so fast that if you blink you may miss them.  Certainly that’s true of many of our woodland wildflowers, which bloom maybe three days—in a good year—and flowering trees, whose petals seem to start carpeting the ground almost as soon as they unfurl.  Happily, there’s a succession of things coming on, in waves: bluebells and azaleas, mayapples and hydrangeas, building up to the excitement of the first June fireworks in the display garden.  Spring springs from the earth, renewing its age-old promise.  Ever the same, ever surprising.