Hope and Henbit

Have you ever been perfectly silent on a very still day, and heard the wind arrive?  First it is a distant "hush," telling the world to quiet, to expect it.  Then it's in the trees, still leafless now, and the branches begin to knock together - a gentle, prickly sort of noise as the wind blows through the small twigs at the treetops, a deep rushing sound as is wends through the older, sturdier growth, the occasional dull clatter as a dead limb falls, and the almost painful creak, like arthritic joints, as it sweeps through a cluster of full grown pines.  Yet where I sit it is still, waiting - until now, at last, it's here.  The chimes begin a wild chorus, the fruit tree blooms tremble and take to flight, the pages of my book open, fan-like, leaves and twigs and bits of bark dance down from the woods and across the grass in front of me, and now the sound of the wind has reached me.

The sky was almost blue, the trees were almost budding,
the sun was almost bright.

- Millard Kaufman

It's an almost warm morning at my Thoughtful Spot, the forsythia is in full sunshine bloom, and bright faced dandelions dot the newly greening grass.  The henbit (Lamium amplexicaule) reached its dazzling magenta peak on the hay fields last week, and has been overtaken by the dusty purple deadnettle (Lamium purpureum), whose sweet, bitter, wonderfully green smell is just about my favorite scent in spring.  I found some growing this January, in a garden bed that had been covered through most of the harshest cold.  I crushed a leaf when I found it and suddenly smelled April.

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That little patch of deadnettle froze when the snow came a week later,  but for one warm moment in that frost-protected soil it grew, full of hope, yet without certainty of survival.  I do love that about Spring growth - sometimes it’s destroyed by a late frost, sometimes buds form too early, some tiny blooms last only a fleeting week and might be missed if you don't pay attention.  Despite all this, the moment a bit of earth thaws and a few breezes warm, even if conditions are not perfectly ideal, even though there's a chance they won't last more than a frosty overnight,  without certainty, without expectation that

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everything will go their way, new shoots burst out of neglected  gardens, tender tendrils reach towards the nearing sun, old trees shudder through the wild winds and stretch out their twig tips into new leaf buds. Don't they know that it isn't yet safe for certain?  That this wind is blowing in a cold front that might destroy all their hard work?  That their efforts might be useless, their energy wasted? Perhaps. But I like to fancy that they have hope, that they know it is their purpose to grow and bloom, and that they find joy in the effort, for the very fact that they can try is a gift, not to be neglected. 

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Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been,
I have great faith in a seed… Convince me that you have a seed there,
and I am prepared to expect wonders.

 - Henry David Thoreau

The wind has moved on to draw a pale grey cover over this morning's brilliant sky.  The bare trees look stark and cold against it, but here below the songbirds chat and the neon green chickweed (Stellaria media) crawls up the tree trunk beside which I write.  March is like that - a month of contrast, it is winter in the sky  and spring on the earth beneath. 

In this Lenten season of frailty and forgiveness,  I find myself feeling my own fragility more keenly than usual. Perhaps I needed the reminder this conflicting day brings, with its brave and joyous sprouts of new life, a reminder that the expectations I hold might not always align with the eventual reality, yet to embark, to strive, to grow, to aspire is part of our purpose, in our nature. And the ability, the wonderful privilege to hope is in itself a gift, undeserved, yet given. The quickening earth might not know that the next few weeks will surely hold those biting spring rainstorms, uneasy tornado watches, a flash flood, or more freezing nights.  But perhaps it does know what we too often forget - that, just as surely, these harsh spring winds bring us nearer to summer.