In pursuit of hope

This morning bright sunshine sparkled and glittered in the ice-covered tree branches. It looked quite magical. This being the month of St. Patrick’s Day, we wondered if the little people had been about, casting spells on the trees or on us. By mid-day much of the ice and snow was gone from the trees but magic, in a different form, had been delivered to our front door. The UPS delivery man had brought another tall box from White Flower Farm. Last month’s contents were forsythia stems, which are now sitting in a bucket in the family room south-facing window well to see if any will produce roots.

Double Quince Flowering Branches

Today’s package was a couple of handfuls of double quince flowering branches, branches with some thorns. They have now been trimmed, placed in vases, watered and will soon give another promise of spring, although we are currently one hardiness zone colder than listed for quince trees, with climate weirding, we may see if we can get any of these branches to root and try starting a tree or two.

We’re slowly discovering that gardening, and spring in the North Country, share some characteristics with fishing. In earlier posts we’ve mentioned a wall hanging we have that tells us that:

The charm of fishing is that it is the pursuit of what is elusive but attainable * a perpetual series of occasions for hope *

 Approached properly, almost anything might fit that description, even making sense in today’s world.

Instructions on Not Giving Up

Ada Limón - 1976-

More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out
of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’s
almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving
their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate
sky of Spring rains, it’s the greening of the trees
that really gets to me. When all the shock of white
and taffy, the world’s baubles and trinkets, leave
the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath,
the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin
growing over whatever winter did to us, a return
to the strange idea of continuous living despite
the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then,
I’ll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf
unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I’ll take it all.

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