Spring is a kiss from God

Spring is always so busy that with change that we often rush through and miss some of the best things–like flowers. In Oklahoma, Ox-eye daisies grow beside the road. Prairie parsley, like firework bursts of bright yellow dance and bow as you pass. Don’t pass too fast. Stop and see. A moment in your headlong hurry to notice is like taking a few seconds to say thanks to God.

Red and orangey Indian paintbrushes leave swathes of color across new green where weeks before all we had was brown. A leisurely walk through a meadow full of new grasses and wildflowers is better than any medicine I know of. It heals up all the drear of winter and all the disappointments and hard knocks you have suffered fade away.

Soon there are splashes of yellow buttercups and pools of soft pink Showy Evening primrose. The pear trees bloom white and apple trees glow pink. In the woods splashes of purple mark the redbud trees and graceful arms of white dogwood grace the scene.

My favorite thing is to find a spot where there once was an old farmhouse. There may be nothing left but the remains of a barn or the top of a cistern or storm cellar. There I find green tufts with yellow trumpets of daffodils blowing in the wind, often purple iris or other flowers once loved now left behind. I consider these house-site flowers a legacy from a prairie housewife, a gift to me, so I go in and pick armloads to carry home and set in vases all over the house. What an extra helping of joy my soul gains from them.

By Elece Hollis, author of Meet God in the Morning, Poems for the Heart of Prayer http://amzn.to/1o6ZMTi