After rain

 

Memorial day has a deeper shade of remembrance this year.  Not only for those gone in military war, but now in the terrible war on children, on women, the aged and infirm...and our communities themselves.

It rained good and hard the other day, and, while I was thankful for the feeding of the garden and the lightness of air it had brought, it occurred to me that even the atmosphere was in mourning.  The wind high and mighty, throwing down crumbling limbs, ripping magnolia and tulip poplar cups from the massive trees, moving ground itself...was this the anger of the skies against such untoward human violence?

The next day, walking out in the still-wet neighborhood, I looked down to this leaf on the road...it stopped me and my camera instantly.  It seemed so much a sign of sorrow.  In it, I saw a poem, remembered the title of a story or book (William Trevor, isn't it?), but the leaf itself, its teary surface, was image enough.

Early this morning, meant to grow hotter by late afternoon, I toured the garden, as I usually do...my first chore to pick up fallen twigs and pull the tiny weeds trees seed in the front slope.  As I circled, however, I noticed that the rain had left some wonderful, hopeful gifts...a few unexpected white blossoms and larger than seasonal green shoots.  I thought I would share them with you. 

Following a trail of downed oak twigs, I walked up to the Empress of China dogwood I planted last year, top center of the front slope.  

Such blossoms its first year in new ground!  Thank you, I told it.

Under the new gardenia Tom Krenitsky gave me was hidden the first of its flowers, scented and lovely, spared by the rain and wind.

In the back, our only sunshine, up have come the ginger from Angie...

risen from beneath the ground as they do year after year, 

but even so, their bright hardiness cheered me.

By the side wall, an oakleaf hydrangea, also planted a year ago, shot up its first flower...the deer must have missed it, for it chewed its companion a few feet away, despite the spice-and-pepper deterent thrown on it.

And behold, another...this one from the gardens at Montrose...a really enormous single  flowering...almost more flower than leaf...down behind the little book box by the street, luckily too awkward a space for the deer (no, don't feel sorry for them...they have yards of food hereabout...like the most enormous smorgasbord you can imagine to which they arrive in herds nightly and sometimes noonly). 

Near the front door, the giant spirea, from Holly and Steve a few years ago, turned pink and fuzzy.  It always does, but this time its return catches my eye differently, 

more somberly, for the storm has pushed down its middle, 

like the well of flour one makes for bread.

Even the nearly-gone poinsettia I left on the porch from early December, a gift from friend Jim, is topped with new green, looking forward to another winter's bright bracts.

So even in sorrow I am met by gifts of gifts and remember them, too.  

Now if only beauty instead of rage grew on our land.

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The next day

Remember that lone blossom on Tom's gardenia (above)?

This morning...overnight...this is what I found.

Gifts grow.