A Flower is a Lovesome Thing

 Annamaria  on Monday

My title today comes from a song by the incomparable Billy Strayhorn.

I am writing on a beautiful Easter Sunday morning, and despite the news reports, I cannot bring myself – with sunlight streaming into the room - to think about, much less write about dark things.  There will be time for that another day.  This lovely day is for beautiful thoughts.

I love the springtime and flowers especially - joys not even allergy attacks can dispel.  Time was that I had an outdoor garden that I loved. I delighted in Saturdays dressed in rags, getting all dirty, digging, planting, and weeding.  The result looked like this:

The time for such delights passed, and for ten years now, I have been only an indoor gardener.  It's rewards also come in the springtime:

The beautiful city that surrounds me also bursts back to life with the spring:

This year, though, my favorite magnolias (also called tulip trees) budded in a March warm spell.  When the temperatures then sank into the low twenties (minus 5C), the promised pink blossoms died:

I feared we would never again see the glories of how they used to look in full bloom:

Mother Nature has, in the past week, now bestowed hope.  Lovely green leaves have emerged from the wreckage wrought by climate change:

And hope springs that next year we will have our beauteous sights again.

Listen to Billy Strayhorn's haunting pean to Nature's wondrous gifts.  And hope along with me.