Redbuds

{First:  Sheppard Tucker captured the amazing image you see here.  Thank you, Sheppard!!} 

When my heart is almost saturated with February’s cold and damp, I remember to begin my watch.

Soon, they make their springtime entrance, taking away my very breath.  Scrawny branches, once brown and bare, now show tiny pink-violet buds peeking out into chilly air.  Nearly imperceptible at first, their color grows into a glorious magenta shout reverberating against a piercing blue late-March sky.  

One glimpse of these blossoms speaks straight to my soul.  They tell of transformation.  Of possibilities.  Of rebirth.  Of breath-stealing splendor springing from what just yesterday looked little more than barren.

Reawakened by this burst of beauty, I rejoice as deep down things bring the dearest freshness,* birthing my own soul's song. 

Then, almost as quickly as it came, the color will go. Startling red-purple blossoms will quiet into green.  

Tempted to mourn the loss of the blossoms’ bright beauty, I suspend my singing, wish this joy-surge would stay.  

Yet spring's fleeting renewal is not our only sacred season. This exuberant newness must surrender to summer’s steady stretch.  

Then, after searching for sustenance in dark soil, roots are stretched deep.  Leaves will whisper in the warm wind. These branches, now steadied, will reach high, share shade, draw ever heavenward in hour upon hour of shining sun.

* I am indebted to Gerard Manley Hopkins for these words which are part of his buoyant poem, "God's Grandeur." 

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But blessed are those who trust in the Lord 

and have made the Lord their hope and confidence.

They are like trees planted along a riverbank,

with roots that reach deep into the water.


Such trees are not bothered by the heat 

or worried by long months of drought.


Their leaves stay green,

and they never stop producing fruit.