Roads in my Roses There are roads in my roses That only I can see, When Spring time digging Reveals them to me. Rusty now against my heart, The car had traveled through the years. Remembering, I see again, This car, new. And through my smiling tears, I see it launched By then-small hands Busy under a bowed little head, On roads that reached forever, But never left my flowerbed.
“Well, it’s just not easy to have a relationship with a chicken”, my friend concluded as we sat around the table comparing chicken stories. (Yes, we really were.) “I guess I will have to disagree,” I said, images surfacing from my own childhood. “I had a wonderful relationship with a little red rooster. His name was Red, of course. I was about six years old….” I had almost forgotten. The mailman had delivered the cardboard box while I was staying the weekend with my grandparents. And what a box it was! The whole box was bursting with ear-shattering shrill “cheeps”, and it was full of small holes through which tiny beaks frantically poked. Grandma’s batch of spring chicks had arrived! She carefully set the noisy box in the middle of the living room floor where I eagerly helped her open it. “Handle them gently now,” Grandma cautioned me as I…
“When I think about it, oh, I am really sad—for about 30 seconds,” a teacher recently confessed to me. We were talking about the impending end of the school year. Actually, that pretty well sums up how most of the students feel about it too; at least, that’s how I remember it. From the elementary grades through high school, the end of the school year was always the same. I was sad about saying goodbye to my favorite school activities, like art, reading, music, recess, and the noon hour. I would miss seeing my friends every day, and most years, I would even miss my teachers. But any feelings of sadness were quickly replaced with a welling up of anticipatory joy for being set FREE! I could imagine what prisoners and indentured servants might feel when told that their shackles would be unlocked and their prison doors would be opened…
They are out there, alright, calling to me more urgently every day. “It’s too early,” I tell them. “Go back to sleep for a little while longer; you know that the danger of frost and late snow will come again.” But neither the garden nor the flower beds are listening to me. The clamor of spring has begun. Our soft-spoken pussy willow was the first to get our attention. It bloomed well before Easter, having its say early. It is a hardy soul and seemed to relish the snap of cold winds from the north. In fact, I thought it wore its cap of spring snow rather well. The parsley and spearmint were next to herald spring’s arrival. We tucked freshly picked sprigs around the deviled eggs on Easter. Though it still seemed too early, we welcomed the whispered hints of more to come. However, the stubborn apricot tree that…
It’s happening again; it’s the same every spring and summer. I am confronted with the Great Dandelion Dilemma. I am reluctant to chase them from my lawn, these tiny replicas of the sun, small cushions of yellow and gold rising from the green. What if they are really a blessing instead of a curse, a feast instead of pestilence, like manna from heaven, an abundant harvest for which we have not sown? Each time I pick up my paring knife to dig them up, my intent is diverted by memories of past “dandelion days” of summer. Sometimes, on hot and lazy summer afternoons, my friends and I would spread an old blanket on the grass under a shade tree. Next, we carefully searched the fringe areas of the lawn, garden, and nearby ditch banks for our elusive treasures--dandelions with long stems! Giggling and gushing over each new find, we eventually…