THE POWER OF SPRING

‘Funny, isn’t it, that man, with all the technology at his finger tips, cannot will Spring to come. Yes, we can engineer daffodils in new shapes and shades, but we can’t make April’s profusion of colorful blossoms and heady scents parade down the hillsides, across the fields and through the gardens a day earlier or a week later than Nature intends. You can hold a tulip bulb in your hand, warm it, coddle it….carry it with you, but it isn’t until you set it into the earth and trust the Power greater than your own, that it will grow. April humbles us. It ushered in spring before we were here on earth, and it will continue to usher it in long after we’ve left the earth. Unlike us, it’s a constant. To play our small, but important, role in the breathtaking drama called Spring, we need only open our eyes and enjoy the beauty. This is one of those times when being an observer can bring the deepest pleasure.

GOOD FRIDAY

WOOD WORK

Someone

Used a skilled eye

Searching for the ideal height

And thickness of the tree;

Detatched...

Indifferent...

Cut it down,

His brow sweat dripping

On the wounded pulp.

Someone

Dragged it back to town,

Behind a team,

To where another

Split the beams

Right for support...

Not flimsy

Or too short...

And free of cracks

That might give way too soon.

Someone

Laid two pieces on the ground

Then wound them

At the junctions...

Tight with heavy rope

To sure their hold.

It was a job for three or four

To hoist it upright...

Finished, and in place.

Someone

Gave the final word

To call it

What it had become,

A cross...

Fit for a king.

Sandra Peasley Bush

APRIL BLESSINGS

STIRRINGS

There is a restlessness to Spring.

There is impatience-

A pacing of the floor

A tapping of the fingers

A watching of the clock

As days grow long.

There is a blinking of the eyes

At the sight of giddy green

A drive to sweep clean

Every crack and crevice

Holding signs of

Winter gray.

The stomach churns;

The skin itches.

There is a longing

To remember what

Seemed long ago

Forgotten;

An urge to touch

Soft pussy willow fur.

A moving of priorities

From inside,

Now to out.

A folding up

Of wollen grays and browns;

A trading

For crisp cotton pinks and blues.

There is a warmer side

To my house now

Where hope and hyacinth

bask side by side

In butter yellow rays.

Where purple finch and sparrow nest

In rolled up awnings,

And shell armored hatchlings peck,

Impatient on this day

To make their way

Toward April sun.

Sandra Peasley Bush