In Just-spring . . .

. . . when the world is mud-luscious” (e.e. cummings) – that’s when the crocuses start to bloom on the Prairies. They are so fragile and yet so sturdy – the first sign of new life returning to the barren ground after a long, hard winter.

But the challenge is finding the crocuses. You have to time your walk across the Prairies to just the right moment, and the crocuses are usually hidden in sheltered hollows.

The Houston Chronicle (via CyberJournalist) has created an interactive web page so that locals can post photos and the location of the wildflowers they have seen. What a lovely idea!

And for those of you who, like me, enjoy poetry and are still waiting longingly for spring, here’s another poem by e.e. cummings:

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)