Life Intensified

Stand close to the sprout on a new tree, these exploding branches and leaves and flowers and fruit, where just six weeks ago nothing but sealed bud rested, and try to tell me there's nothing to be amazed about. No hand of mine, no hand of yours. The more greedy of the species, Norway maples and buckthorn, or the fast growing pioneers like white, gray, and sweet birch, are all leafed out now. Oaks plod along, as if content to build a secure maturity. The hickory has barely shown its face and the catalpa, which will be showing its great white and pink blossoms in a few more weeks, still looks the part of winter. On the forest floor, forest lilies and ground pine, ladyslippers, cinnamon and sweet fern, blueberries and huckleberries. And the sounds of the forest have changed as well. Birdsong of all denominations echo across treetops. They feast on this explosion of tree and plant and insect. They follow it north. Where we are standing still feeling this season come upon us in its gracious and magical ways, these migratory friends are riding a wave of springtime rolling north from the Gulf of Mexico. This is the busiest time of year, outwardly. The cell growth and metamorphoses in the great orchestra of life rise to their crescendo all around us. I drink it in with my senses and glory in the fact of being.

Freedom will not come to those oppressed by the blindingly selfish policies of the present United States regime. Humanity as a premise must be recovered. The evil that men do live after them. Justice, like the ginkgo tree, must push on through the longue duree. The oak is a fine metaphor for our better senses.