spring is yellow...

As I look out my prayer room window,it hardly seems possible that there is color.What I see is the hue of Van Gogh's awnings,sunshine and my striped pillow.A single flower:daffodil.The first one to bloom here at the end of February.

How can I forget this:the daffodils that my father planted one fall when I was 12 .Somehow,he had won a bag of bulbs and on hands and knees,he dug a hole for each to plant along the border of the azaleas in the front of our house.Spring came and nothing was happening ,no shoots ,no buds, so my mother dug one up.They were all planted upside down and in the way of indomitable nature,they were sprouting downward then making u-turns to head towards the sun.Eventually the buds and flowers followed.Spring.

If this story is to be true,I am not surprised that the bulbs were carelessly planted.Addictions have a way of robbing strength and judgement and so it was.But still, the flowers bloomed and Nature was true.

Other than the daffodils,Spring is not apparent.The woods are still bare, the sun white,and the breeze is cold.But we know what is coming,the flowers and I.I am pleased beyond all telling to be a witness once again.Spring.

Daffodils bloomed at the end of April on Long Island.Even then, shorts were still in boxes.But May would come,knees would be liberated by white shorts with red strawberries.Lilacs would be snipped and placed on a shelf with a statue of Mary and as a child I could hardly run down the stairs fast enough to be outside,in that season of purples,yellow,salmon and white and scents that could make one swoon.Lilacs,lily of the valley.

And I hear a new sound that pushes up through the soil of my heart.It is my Uncle Les' voice,he who was not Catholic.In his hand are beautiful showy Florida flowers.It is May of the year in the late 40s that we lived in the South:"I have flowers for Mary," he chanted as he placed them on her altar.So loving,so kind.He was the only relative that I ever knew that had paid me a compliment.It just wasn't done then.He spoke of my character and I admit that I tried hard to live up to his idea of who I was.When I knew him, he never worked ,having been gassed in World War 1.I wish I could know him now.

The ice on the birdbath cannot squelch this spring fever.