The papers were full of it. “Turn and Greet ‘Em at the Arboretum,” one slogan read. “Smack your Tulips and Smile Together,” another chimed. Then, they froze. Snow battered the buds. Ice buried the blooms. Those tulips froze together, shut closed, and their smile was seen no more.
“But, that was weeks ago,” she pled.
“Okay,” I acquiesced in turn.
So, off we went.
It was warm, the first really hot day of Texas spring.
Not a tulip in sight, but there a pair of pretty pink azaleas, the last of their lingering line, bid fair greeting to our studied steps.
We left the wooded glen to venture under the sun and spy the rising spire of a century plant’s soon-to-tower-even-higher bloom.
Yes, the impatient days of summer’s red warmth would soon be upon us.
To that day, drooping buds of other cacti warm to rise and burst in the columned excess of a new day’s heat.
Trumpeted on their way by shy bells tolling yesterday’s shade.
In celebration, red maples lift leaves to sky.
Flashing sentinels on green-burst paths of spring.
A plaque-emblazoned bench dares all to bear the heat.
While an amaryllis sings.
Not to be frozen in time like those ancient ones.
Spring is seldom a time of reflection.
Spring is a time to see and be seen.
In its ways, spring is an uncultured time, a time true to its own particular hues — as different as they might be seen to the uncultivated eye.
Yes, the tulips arrived too soon and were too few saved from their caves of ice. Azaleas were themselves too soon passed and mostly missed by our late arrival. Our wait was due to weather and the whiling away of time. When we did arrive, it was worth the while and more appreciated for the unexpected hue and cry that rose from those lesser and later known.
That is and was an odd and pleasant surprise.
Grandpa Jim