-by Frank Macdonald
It was Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week and already nearly a month deep into spring. The Universe was unfolding as it should, according to poets and prophets. The sun was out, albeit a bit of a chilly sun, but compared to its abandonment of us through the long, nasty winter, it was an encouraging early Holy Week sign of things resurrecting.
In our own yard there appeared, like shy kittens peeking from beneath a couch’s skirting, a bloom of yellow crocuses and white snowdrops, peeking from beneath what’s left of a winter’s worth of snow. Spring was asserting itself.
It was the kind of bright spring day when people say, “Do you want to go for a walk?” and set off to explore the aftermath of the hardest winter in memory, to discover what about our home town has changed over the months, a new house here, new siding there, no house at all where there used to be a family-filled one, all the variations and grace notes that accompany the ever-changing nature of ourselves and our world. A person could breathe deep lung-fulls of spring air and sense the long, hot summer hidden within that brisk freshness. The walk comes to an end with a royal walkabout about the yard, admiring these crocuses, some of which have been making annual appearances since the 1940s.
Then it was the next morning.
The curtain was drawn to gaze out on the wondrous outdoors only to find that the snowdrops have been pinned to the mat by snowflakes, a nasty, wet overnight accumulation of them. There was no power, no school, no walking along the slushy streets. It was one of those global warming-climate changing confusions that leads one to ponder upon the survival rate of early spring flowers.
It’s natural to assume that it takes considerable courage for an April seed in the ground to decide to be the first to go up and take a peek, see if it’s safe for the rest of the garden to begin stirring into blooming action. Or maybe it’s less courage than it is the drawing of the short straw.
“You lose, Charlie, go check our chances.”
“I don’t wanna!”
“Tough! But there`s always gotta be the first rose of spring.”
“But I’m a crocus.”
“A rose by any other name and all that, Charlie. Go!”
So Charlie Crocus pushes its head against the thinning layer of frost, bursts through into sunlight and air, gives the “All clear!” His garden mates begin joining him. The yard’s owners take that aforementioned walk.
That was yesterday.
So where’s Charlie et al now?
Somewhere under the snow, but the ethical dilemma here is whether or not to interfere. Do I go out an excavate the snow, free the yellow blossom back into the sunlight? Ah, but what sunlight? Yesterday’s brightness is today muffled in a cloudy cloak. I opt to scrape my car instead, leaving Nature to rescue what it will, if it has the will to rescue anything.
By the time I finish debating with myself the pros and cons of freeing flowers from an early grave, the snow has begun to slide off my car of its own accord. Last night’s freezing rain and snowfall is wilting away in a way it never agreed to do come car-scraping time in January. The flower-smothering snow in the garden, though is still deep in shade, protected from an early melt. Maybe crocus freedom or a crocus funeral comes later.
Later, when I return, it’s too dark to rescue flowers even if their climatic misfortune had come to my mind instead of a televised ball game.
What comes through Monday night is not another snowstorm but an eclipse of the moon through which I slept and missed, a blood moon to boot. Not a good omen, not even in Holy Week.
But another morning does come with a half decent sunburst. The curtains are drawn again and standing there (at least an inch and a half high) is a triumphant gathering of yellow crocuses and no sign of any snow. None.
Traces of things long buried begin to emerge, begin to restore my faith in spring’s persistence. But like a believer who hedges his bets, I welcome the moon-delivered flowers to my yard, while the salt and sand, shovel and winter survival clothes remain locked in my trunk (along with a symbol of my timid faith in spring’s arrival, my golf clubs. You never know).
