Putting forth leaves

Birds know already that it is rightful springtime. Suddenly, they zoom quick as a thought across this pale blue sky, gather in busy conversations among the branches, hunt for seeds, full of bustle and energy.

Prairie smoke, wild columbine, pussytoes and penstemons unfold purple-green leaves on the muddy soil, encircled by melting fields of ice. Their season of sleep is over. The sun moves into them, pouring from a golden goblet of fire that quickens their green veins. 

The Oak King is rising, the Holly King dreams. The sun now rises due East, edging ever northward on its journey to the summer solstice. 

My annual seeds wait in bright packets: gaillardia, black-eyed susan vine. Zinnia. Brazilian vervain, cleome. When frosts are gone and soil is warm, I will plant a riot of their butterfly colors to spring forth among the purples, pinks and yellows.

For now, they sleep, as I do; even on the first day of spring. 

The truth is, if I were planted in the garden, I would be one of those species that has seemingly died over the winter, causing much consternation. Will it emerge or not; and if so, when? 

Patience is required. Perhaps this species stirs only when May magics the hawthorns and crabapples into their splendid white blooms, waiting until all the world has taken up its spring song. 

On the other hand, transformation could wait for June, or July, or another season altogether. 

Wildflowers, trees, tulips, selves all unfold in their own good time, responding to the light, the air; to their own mysterious, internal knowing. 

The life that inhabits all in this world sleeps and wakens as it will, when it will. You can't reason with it, can't force it. All you can do is work and wait, like a woman trying to shed the snakeskin of winter in spring. Wait with patience, with none. With the childlike faith you usually reserve for making wishes. 

As you wait, you pretend that you are the person who can simply swallow a spring wind to grow leaves in your heart. 

 

Wide sky

You could write a poem about a day with a wide sky; a day enlivened by the wind of the breathing Earth.

But maybe the day itself is a poem? A poem that you live, and afterward try to capture in words. Sky so wide with possibility; a beautiful blue page across which to drift your thought clouds. 

.   .   . 

I read a recent post from author Rebecca Solnit. She came across a man pruning a flowering magnolia tree, collected what had fallen to the ground, and carried it home. She wrote, we are all battered magnolia blossoms right now, who want to be gathered up and seen. 

It felt deeply true, truer than facts, true in the striking way that belongs only to metaphors. 

Certain metaphors send a jolt of recognition through us. Yes, we think, that's exactly how it is. Why didn't I see that before?

We can all think and create using metaphors, of course; this is one of humanity's gifts. But perhaps to develop this gift, we need to notice what is in front of us, be open to its teaching, and listen to what arises from within us in response.

Seen through a certain lens, our daily lives are poems. Tales. Myths. Rich with unexpected connections, symbols, signs, analogies, associations, archetypes, characters, metaphors. 

Through metaphor, we can understand the connections that are already here, waiting for us to see them. 

We can create connections between experiences that initially seem disconnected...a faceted narrative that we can turn this way and that, reflecting our lives back to us in a new form.

We can make meaning out of what we dismiss as meaningless. Frame difficult realities so they are easier to bear, and add untold depths to our joys and sorrows. 

It is up to us. A wide sky can be seen as nothingness...or, it is our most expansive, unbounded selves, unfolding into the cosmos, as far and as wide as our souls and hearts can imagine reaching.