Dogwood Gardens

“If you have not heard the trees of the field clap their hands, do not think it is because they don’t.”

McClandish Phillips

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Walking in the gardens this week, I was thrilled to see the dogwoods blooming like mad. They are the prettiest things. The joy of them feeds your soul like food feeds the belly.

The crabapples are still blooming, a tinge here and there of redbud, and some of the dogwood is pink for a contrast of color on the white. Yet if you look close, you will see pink on the outer edge of each of the four white petals.

Because it blooms at Eastertime, many say it represents the cross with a drop of blood on each pure petal and in the center a crown of thorns. The pink trees are unusual, but I do prefer the white dogwood. It seems more natural.

In the quiet of the garden, where the only sounds are rustling of wind in the treetops and the gurgle of water in the pools and streams, along with the voices of birds singing, I can rest my mind and restore my soul, drink in the scene and then turn it into new pictures for my mind to hold.

I don’t suppose a person could ever fill up every memory spot in the brain with such sights. What I can’t remember with my brain, I try to remember with my camera.

When my elderly mother spent whole days lying quietly alone in her bed we asked her “Aren’t you lonesome, Mama?” and she replied, “No, I have my memories.”

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