This morning, here from my Little House, flowers spill over their clay pots, sweet purple petunias and snowy alyssum, ruby colored geraniums and lavender just budding out, the fragrant tips reaching for the morning sun–and my favorite, my Orange Sedge. The way each blade of grass shimmers in the dappled sunlight, creating a magical light show that mesmerizes me for as long as I stare at it.
I did a search for “April poems” and found this one. Reading through it, I remember spring in Virginia, where I grew up, and long to smell and see a sassafras tree in the woods, scrape the bark for that pungent smell, remembering all the time I spent wandering, picking violets and honeysuckle. Those smells and memories will be with me forever.
The English in Virginia, April 1607
They landed and could
see nothing but
meadows and tall
trees—
cypress, nearly three
fathoms about at the
roots,
rising straight for
sixty or eighty feet
without a branch.
In the woods were
cedars, oaks, and
walnut trees;
some beech, some elm,
black walnut, ash,
and sassafras; mul-
berry trees in
groves;
honey-suckle and
other vines hanging
in clusters on
many trees.
They stepped on
violets and other
sweet flowers,
many kinds in many
colors; straw-
berries and rasp-
berries were on
the ground.
Blackbirds with red
shoulders were
flying about
and many small birds,
some red, some blue;
the woods were full of deer;
and running
everywhere
fresh water—
brooks, rundles,
springs and creeks.
In the twilight,
through the thickets
and tall grass,
creeping upon all
fours—the
savages, their
bows in their
mouths.
