Coming Back to the Earth

When all else fails, I come back to the earth.  Sadness looms, and I dig my fingers into the dirt.  Pull a couple of weeds.  Plant some bulbs.  Inhale the deepest, reddest rose I can find.  Look into the pale blue sky and find the black brushstroke that is a swallow and watch it flit through its universe until it disappears.  Nothing works better than the garden for taking away pain and anguish and despondency.

On the converse, nothing works better than gardening when you want to relish the happiness you might feel.  Watch a bearded lily unfold, rejoicing in its ability to reach for the sun, and you can open up your own heart and feel the beauty of nature.

It's deep spring again in North Carolina, and the flowers I planted in the garden last spring are blooming or beginning to bud.  The jonquils are long gone, the lilies starting to peter out, the roses in the garden at the empty house across the street are in their first blush.  Daisies are rising from the ground and gardenias becoming their glossy, forest green.

This part of the year reminds me of the reason why so many great poets write about nature, so I offer another to you here.  This one is a simple yet profound statement on the season by e.e. cummings.

          III

Spring is like a perhaps hand 
(which comes carefully 
out of Nowhere)arranging 
a window,into which people look(while 
people stare
arranging and changing placing 
carefully there a strange 
thing and a known thing here)and

changing everything carefully

spring is like a perhaps 
Hand in a window 
(carefully to 
and fro moving New and 
Old things,while 
people stare carefully 
moving a perhaps 
fraction of flower here placing 
an inch of air there)and

without breaking anything.