SPRINGTIME

Ah, Springtime!

Some green is in the meadow
The birds are in the sky
Rabbits are hopping about in play
And ducks are waddling by
Robins are chasing one another
As the snow is in decline
The buds are popping on the trees
For new nests to hide in there
Oh yes! our hearts are happy
Spring is in the air
                                     Gretta Barclay

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CAN SPRING BE FAR BEHIND?

I once read that lowering expectations can make you happier. An interesting concept, to be sure, and one which I entertained this past week on March 21st, the first OFFICIAL day of spring. Where I live here in the Midwest, it neither looked like spring nor felt like spring with cold, non-forgiving temperatures, and no buds be seen on the trees. The first sign of  REAL spring for me is always the few crocuses that still manage to push their way up into my yard each year. Until I see them, I am not convinced of this long awaited season. The second things I look for, or course, are the robins in the yard, pulling up worms or just hopping around in hopes of a tasty meal.. And finally, when the tulips and daffodils can bee seen one day in all their splendor and glory along with the forsythia and lilacs. Now that is the picture of Spring, for me!
When I was growing up, I was not so aware of the natural signs of spring. I was a city girl in Cincinnati, and other than the Magnolia trees in bloom, I think that, only warmer weather brought on the feelings of spring for me. Along with that, there was also the anticipation of going downtown Cincinnati to shop for a new Easter outfit and new Easter shoes, usually patten-leather,black and shinny! In the earlier years, it also included looking for an Easter hat (bonnet), and the song, "In Your Easter Bonnet, With All the Frills Upon It...." was sung with happy anticipation in our house.
But, it is the feeling  that I still get when Daylight Savings time changes to let more light into the afternoon and evening that brings on the greatest memories of spring-time for me. For it was in these longer day-light hours that we could remain outside, playing with our neighborhood friends, games of Tag, Kick the Can, Capture the Flag etc. If truth be known, this is what spring-time really meant to me, and the memory of it captures me with delight even today!

Enough!

Pictures/ back yard

ENOUGH

Just one tulip bloomed this Spring
But this was enough for me
I need just one perfect example
Of God's miracle, to see
How perfect is the Universe
In all its majesty
Just one bloom
One blade of grass
One single tree
That is enough for me.....       Poem by Gretta Barclay

SPRING GLADNESS

The first buds of March

Appeared this morning, soft green

The air smells of spring

In the back yard tree

The doves have returned to nest

The grass smells of spring.

Everywhere in twos

Creatures of the earth dancing....

The world made new. Spring!

Gretta Barclay/Mo Conlan, March 28, 2003

Springtime, 2010

LET ME GO IN SPRINGTIME

Let me go in springtime

When I go

So that the long winter will not

Seem in vain

And I can hear again

The birds chirping one more time

Before I go

And I will want to see

The row of day lilies

That grow each spring

Along the hedge

And smell the lilacs below

My window pane

I will want to greet one more time

Hank and Henrietta, our doves

That come back each year

To nest in our Evergreen tree

And with my last breaths

I will, once again

Wish to enjoy the rabbits and their offspring

Hopping about and eating the new green shoots

From our garden

And see the ducks waddle by in pairs

Male chasing female

On their way to the lake nearby

I will want to hear the geese honk

Once again

Their message of delight

In flight overhead

As the robins jump about the yard

Finding worms in the wet spring earth

And if I am very lucky

A yellow chickadee will alight

Followed by the redbird

That finds our feeder every year

And the sun will warm my soul

Before I go

And I will be happy then.

Springtime At Last

Oh, those special signs of spring!!! How I love them; let me count the ways. A friend of mine once told me that I get so much joy from nature that it must truly be part of my spirituality. I agree. Nothing is more wonderful to me than a walk in the woods or a stroll around our farm, listening to the noises of nature or watching a bird build its nest which a Robin did last spring right outside my bathroom window, where I could watch him create it, twig by twig, stick by stick and branch by branch. What an incredible process to witness. An aside to this; I just saw a cartoon in the New Yorker where the mother bird is saying to Papa Bird as he is placing another piece of straw on the nest, "No, not there; put it over here." Hmmmm, even female birds may have that sense of design and decorating. Oh course, we know they don't; but wait, do we really know that??? Anyway, spring has once again come to the meadow outside my kitchen window and it does put an extra energetic step into my life. In celebration, I would like to share a poem I wrote another year at this same time called, SPRING AT LAST

SPRING AT LAST

Four long winter months have passed
Fourteen frigid weeks
One hundred twenty days
And now,
Out my kitchen window
Too long absent from my eye
Spring has come at last
Showing its face
And taking its spring-time place
In my backyard

No longer need I linger
lazily on my couch
Wrapped in blankets
to silence the chill
Thinking of this season to come
And anticipating its spring-time thrill

Soon I will go outside and lie down
on the tufts of soft green grass
beneath the oaks and sycamores
And see their buds appearing
And look upon a bring blue sky

And beyond my sights
In far distant fields
Where there are still patches
of winter snow
Just now, beginning to go
Spring-time is coming to the meadow too

Wrens and robins begin to sing
Their new season song
And call along
To other waking creatures of the fields
And from tree to tree
I see
A robin, a dove, a chickadee
Alight in the warm brignt sun
Male chasing female
Displaying bright bulging breasts
Enticing the females to their nests
To begin a family
In this heightened season of the senses
A time not to be alone

The rabbits too, shake their tails
And hale a new day dawning
Another season in which to romp
And stomp their rabbit feet

And now, I myself will go
Wherever nature leads my senses
Whirling winds
Animal movements
Woods running wild
Sunsets setting
Wherever cosmic energy leads me

And before it is over
I will wish that I could paint
And put upon a canvas
The colors and the forms
The emotions and the joys
That this season brings

For when melancholy moments
Come again in December
I will want to remember
All that this season has awakened in me
And the memory will serve me well.