Not a color I’ve wanted to wear—too innocently girlish, and I’m not innocent, not a girl. But today the gnarled cherry trees along Alabama Street are decked out like bridesmaids—garlands in their hair, nosegays in their hands—extravagant,
finally the big spring wedding to splurge, and hang the cost. Each really wants to be the bride so she can toss her bouquet until, unaccustomed, the gutters choke with pink confetti that flies up and whirls in the wake of cars going west… ~Luci Shaw from “Pink” in What the Light Was Like
If you stand in an orchard In the middle of Spring and you don’t make a sound you can hear pink sing, a darling, whispery song of a thing. ~Mary O’Neill from Hailstones and Halibut Bones “Pink”
I have always avoided wearing anything pink other than the blush of my windblown cheeks on a brisk April morning. Yet how can I help but listen to pink as its blooms burst open all around me, bubbling with pastel ebullience, whispering me awake in the morning and gently bidding me goodnight.
I can see, through the rifts of the apple-boughs, The delicate blue of the sky, And the changing clouds with their marvellous tints That drift so lazily by. And strange, sweet thoughts sing through my brain, And Heaven, it seemeth near; Oh, is it not a rare, sweet time, The blossoming time of the year?
~Horatio Alger, Jr. from “Apple Blossoms”
You won’t remember it—the apple orchard We wandered through one April afternoon, Climbing the hill behind the empty farm.
A city boy, I’d never seen a grove Burst in full flower or breathed the bittersweet Perfume of blossoms mingled with the dust.
A quarter mile of trees in fragrant rows Arching above us. We walked the aisle, Alone in spring’s ephemeral cathedral. ~Dana Gioia from “The Apple Orchard”
The rain eases long enough
to allow blades of grass to stand back up
expectant, refreshed
yet unsuspecting,
primed for the mower’s cutting swath.
Clusters of pink tinged blossoms
sway in response to my mower’s pass,
apple buds bulge on ancient branches
in promise of fruit
stroked by the honeybees’ tickling legs.
Bowing low beneath the swollen blooms,
caught by snagging branches
that shower from hidden raindrop reservoirs
held in the clasp of blushing petal cups,
my face is anointed in perfumed apple tears.
~EPG
Lined with light the twigs are stubby arrows. A gilded trunk writhes Upward from the roots, from the pit of the black tentacles.
In the book of spring a bare-limbed torso is the first illustration.
Light teaches the tree to beget leaves, to embroider itself all over with green reality, until summer becomes its steady portrait and birds bring their lifetime to the boughs.
Then even the corpse light copies from below may shimmer, dreaming it feels the cheeks of blossom. ~May Swenson “April Light”
Only a week ago we waited
on corpse light~
a mysterious illumination that came alive
on a bright Sabbath morning,
taking bare stubs of people.
begetting them green,
bursting them into blossom,
their cheeks pink with life,
in promise of faithful fruitfulness.
A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning ~Gerard Manley Hopkins from “Spring”
poplar row behind the apple orchard
Awake! Awake! for the earliest gleam Of golden sunlight shines On the rippling waves, that brightly flow Beneath the flowering vines. Awake! Awake! for the low, sweet chant Of the wild-birds’ morning hymn Comes floating by on the fragrant air, Through the forest cool and dim; Then spread each wing, And work, and sing, Through the long, bright sunny hours; O’er the pleasant earth We journey forth, For a day among the flowers.
~Louisa May Alcott Lily-Bell and Thistledown Song I
a favorite rhododendron
It was such a spring day as breathes into a man an ineffable yearning, a painful sweetness, a longing that makes him stand motionless, looking at the leaves or grass, and fling out his arms to embrace he knows not what. ~John Galsworthy
a happy day put out to pasture
At morn when light mine eyes unsealed
I gazed upon the open field;
The rain had fallen in the night —
The landscape in the new day’s light
A countenance of grace revealed
Upon the meadow, wood and height.
The sun’s light was a smile of gold,
Ere shut by sudden fold on fold
Of surging, showering clouds from view;
No sooner hid than it broke through
A tearful smile upon the wold
Where earth reflected heaven’s blue.
The sky was as a canvas spun
To paint the new spring’s nocturns on;
A blended melody of tints —
The sea’s hue, and the myriad hints
Of garden-closes, when the sun
Hath stamped the work of nature’s mints.
~William Stanley Braithwaite
a happy day put out to blue skies in the breeze
rosemary
Flesh and fleece, fur and feather, Grass and green world all together, Star-eyed strawberry breasted Throstle above Her nested
Cluster of bugle blue eggs thin Forms and warms the life within, And bird and blossom swell In sod or sheath or shell.” – Gerard Manley Hopkins, The May Magnificat
Kale going to seed
“A delicate fabric of bird song Floats in the air, The smell of wet wild earth Is everywhere. Oh I must pass nothing by Without loving it much, The raindrop try with my lips, The grass with my touch; For how can I be sure I shall see again The world on the first of May Shining after the rain?” – Sara Teasdale, May Day
grape hyacinth and tulips
“Every spring is the only spring – a perpetual astonishment.” – Ellis Peters
“Some will tell you crocuses are heralds true of spring Others say that tulips showing buds are just the thing Point to peonies, say when magnolia blossoms show I look forward to the sight of other flowers though Cultivate your roses, grow your orchids in the dark Plant your posies row on row and stink up the whole park The flower that’s my favourite kind is found throughout the land A wilting, yellow dandelion, clutched in a grubby hand.” – Larry Tilander, Springtime of My Soul
“Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day; And give us not to think so far away As the uncertain harvest; keep us here All simply in the springing of the year.
Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white, Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night; And make us happy in the happy bees, The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.” – Robert Frost, A Prayer in Spring
skimmia
“Poetry is the silence and speech between a wet struggling root of a flower and a sunlit blossom of that flower.” – Carl Sandburg
yew pollen
“With the coming of spring, I am calm again. “ – Gustav Mahler
the first of dozens of peonies
The wealthy man is not he who has money, but he who has the means to live in the luxurious state of early spring.
~Anton Chekhov
Virginia Creeper starting to do its creeper thing
Canadian mountains to the north
“This spring as it comes bursts up in bonfires green, Wild puffing of emerald trees, and flame-filled bushes, Thorn-blossom lifting in wreaths of smoke between Where the wood fumes up and the watery, flickering rushes. I am amazed at this spring, this conflagration Of green fires lit on the soil of the earth, this blaze Of growing, and sparks that puff in wild gyration, Faces of people streaming across my gaze.” – D. H. Lawrence, The Enkindled Spring
“The sun was warm but the wind was chill. You know how it is with an April day. When the sun is out and the wind is still, You’re one month on in the middle of May. But if you so much as dare to speak, a cloud come over the sunlit arch, And wind comes off a frozen peak, And you’re two months back in the middle of March.” – Robert Frost
spring sunrise over Mt Baker
“Hark, I hear a robin calling! List, the wind is from the south! And the orchard-bloom is falling Sweet as kisses on the mouth.
Come and let us seek together Springtime lore of daffodils, Giving to the golden weather Greeting on the sun-warm hills.” – Lucy Maud Montgomery, Spring Song
“If you’ve never been thrilled to the very edges of your soul by a flower in spring bloom, maybe your soul has never been in bloom.” – Audra Foveo
Sam stops to smell the tulips
“It’s spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you’ve got it, you want – oh, you don’t quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!” – Mark Twain
someone is looking his age….it was a rough winter
“Every year, back comes Spring, with nasty little birds yapping their fool heads off and the ground all mucked up with plants.” – Dorothy Parker 😉
The rain eases long enough
to allow blades of grass to stand back up
expectant, refreshed yet unsuspecting,
primed for the mower’s cutting swath.
Swollen clusters of pink tinged apple blossoms
sway in response to the mower’s pass,
buds bulge on ancient branches weighted in promise of fruit
stroked by the hum of honeybees’ tickling legs and tongues.
Bowed low beneath the clustered blooms, yet scratched by snagging branches
that shower from a hidden raindrop reservoir
held in the clasp of blushing petal cups–
my wounds anointed in trickles of perfumed crimson.
Barnstorming 
