Changes

A week and two days ago we left home for a graduation, visiting family and friends, and a wedding.  The lawn was freshly mown, and the leaves were not yet fully open on the oaks and maples.  The lilacs were showing their clustered flower buds, and the crabapple was expectant with dark cherry red globes of folded flower petals.

When we drove into the driveway yesterday, it looked like we had been gone a month!  All the trees were fully leaved out, throwing great patches of shade onto the prairie-looking grass yard that had gone to seed.

The honeysuckle shrubs were covered with fragrant flowers–some white and yellow, some light pink, and others a pretty darker pink.

A patch of anemones under the oak tree was bright and beautiful.

Walking through the woods, the Solomon’s seal was thigh-high along the path, and the Hardy geranium, in contrast to its name, looked frail and delicate.

The lilacs were spent and turning brown, and I was disappointed that I had missed the opportunity to bring a vase full of fragrant blooms into the house to perfume the indoor air.  I had also missed the Prairiefire crabapple in its full blooming glory, but found the tiny fruits starting to form at the base of the flower.

I was happy to see the brilliant flowers of perennial blue flax in full bloom, reminding me of the acres and acres of flax that used to be grown in eastern South Dakota.

 If Spring came but once in a century, instead of once a year, or burst forth with the sound of an earthquake, and not in silence, what wonder and expectation there would be in all hearts to behold the miraculous change!                                                       –Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

We had traveled back to two places where we used to live–six and fifteen years ago, respectively.  I was struck by the contrast of things that hadn’t changed at all and things that were completely different and unrecognizable.  Some things that I expected to change, hadn’t, and other things that I expected–or wanted–to stay the same, had changed drastically.  It is humbling and a little haunting to realize that we often have so little control over change.  Nature’s changes, whether as fast as last week’s spring transformations or the slower evolution of one season to another or the still slower changes in landscape and climate, impact us in ways we scarcely know.  And we, in turn, influence people and things around us, including Nature.  May we all be more conscious of the miracles of Nature and of ourselves and of the ways we impact one another and the Earth.