Bud Burst

We are well on our way out of February and I have already shown you some of those early Spring flowers that inspired me the other week in my small courtyard garden.

So this morning I was looking at sticks.

Sticks about to turn into leafy plants.

We were introduced to botany at school well before we realized it by putting those “sticky buds” into jam jars and watching the buds burst open in that annual miracle of new life.

The sticks in my photographs are already telling me that before long, that new cherry tree planted last Spring is about to leap into blossom. I hope that every year now, I will have that brief Japanese moment of joy when the cherry blossom takes its delicate and brief moment on centre stage.

The other photograph is of Rhododendron luteum. More sticks with a story to tell. Those buds contain bright yellow flowers and, on sunny days in late Spring, they too will have their moment; not just that dash of yellow but the whole of this small walled garden will be filled with its sweet, sensuous, intoxicating perfume.

So lets hear it for the sticks.

They talk of beginnings, of burgeoning power, hope and anticipation.

Bud Burst

Something has lifted.
Call it a mood,
Something in the brain,
An illness passing.

That empty space called future,
No longer quite so blank.
Some hints here now of continuance,
revelation, initiation.

The aching thud of history,
Sounds now of more than pain;
More now than just a warning,
A healed wound, a threat.

All is one, united, strong.
Only significant now:
Those hopes and memories,
Immaterial, whimsical, confusing.

Call it a mood.
This bud burst,
This excitement in the present tense.

It is Butterfly awaiting Pinkerton,
But this time a hope fulfilled.

She is there, under the eternal blossom,
No victim to our eyes.

He too, has found his love,
Freed from his past, his destiny.

Call it a mood,
A recovery, a mystery even,
Call it what you like,
But live it; live it now.

4 Comments

  1. I love the fact that spring comes early in Devon. I’ve got a bank of tiny lilac crocuses that turn into stars when the sun hits them!
    My daffodils won’t be long now and I can see that at least some of the tulips I planted last autumn have survived the deep water-logging that my garden had over the winter.
    As for the shrubs, it never takes long, does it? I’ve got some serious budding on the opportunistic flowering currant that turned up unannounced a couple of years ago and the hope of some pretty Japonica blossom in a month or so at a guess.

    Spring does bring hope, doesn’t it? As we don’t get prolonged or severe frosts down this way this year I’ll be looking for the ‘survivors’, some of the more tender plants who were caught unexpectedly by the harshness this time.

    I’ll be looking out for you too 😉

  2. Awww thanks Bridge,

    We have had some severe frosts in South East England but, as far as I can see no damage.

    Even the evergreen clematis which I rather cruelly planted as an experiment.

    I seemed to have survived the worst of the frosts too – so far!

    I want to know all about that garden by the way as the seasons progress.

    Thanks so much for your posting.

  3. What a lovely poem. Connection to nature really does make us alive. My northeast US garden is so far behind those of the two of you, but already I’m scrutinizing everything. And as if on cue my snowdrops opened today!

  4. Anatole,

    It was only right that your snowdrops opened today.

    It was a special day – or so it seemed to me.

    Nature was certainly telling me something…I hope some of that came across in my garbled poem.

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