The burgeoning trees serve to fatten the lazy bees that drift dreamily around the newly warmed back porch. Spring has arrived in all its vernal glory. Redbuds bloom about the encircling woods as do the forsythia. The sleepy dogwoods have only just begun but soon they too will join the rush to burgeon. I eagerly anticipate the pale greening of the long quiescent trees. Too long, have they been in hibernation. It is time now to rise up and rejoin the land of the living.

The woods warm with the rising temperatures, leaving the back porch warmed as well. Now is the time for the insects to awaken and explore. Newly roused these bees seem to study their environs as if for the first time. Buzzing about the porch, along with the fat bluebottles, they seem enthralled with any new contact or experience, no matter how incidental or insignificant. Such is the life of insects. Life is short; experience and understanding are shorter still.

The lack of consequence seems not to matter to these lesser beings. Perhaps there is a lesson in this for us: the larger, sentient beings, some inner, deeper call to abandon our more prosaic endeavors and seek something a little more life affirming; or perhaps it is only my drifting thoughts and musings on this glorious spring day.

As the poet put it: April comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.
(Edna St. Vincent Millay). This seems to capture the mood perfectly: babbling, indeed. The flowers seem to be doing a strewing all their own. Along the roadsides, clumps of daffodils adorn the leaf-strewn gullies, providing a much-needed early glimpse of spring. April, for her part, need only supply the showers; the flowers will take care of themselves.

As for us, we can only hope for an equally vibrant rebirth, be it one of mind or spirit. This is the time of year each of us should aspire to new beginnings, new ideas and, yes, new hope. This is a sentiment much bandied about this election season. Let us hope for leadership that aspires as we do: a hope for less violence, a hope for greater brotherhood, a hope for less of the bickering that forestalls us and leads us all astray, a hope for unity of purpose not the divisive partisanship the pushes us further apart.

We can but hope for all of these in our season of rebirth and reawakening, pray our elected leadership will hope for the same. This may just be all folderol; perhaps a little foolishness is in order. After all, ‘tis the season!

© Stephen Alexander 2008

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