DAFFODILS

I wrote this over ten years ago. It seems that the more things change the more they remain the same.

Yellow, yellow daffodils
Breaking through freezing mud
Stand shivering in the blue spring breeze.
Sunny bonnets announce
The ebbing of winter,
The returning of life to earth.

Half a world away
Still another mother
In ragged coat and head scarf
Bends to the freezing mud
Of a fresh grave
Where she places
Yellow, yellow daffodils.

We are all different and we are all alike.

HOW BAD COULD IT GET? part 5

(continued from the previous four posts)

Rather than leave our tree to die a long slow death, we decided to have it taken out. In less than a minute this friend that had shaded doll parties, Ninja Turtle battles and picnics; sheltered birds and cooled our house was down. Inside the tree we found dry wood. We saved a few pieces of the trunk. The rest was fed to the chipper. Not even the stump remained at the end.

We dug a hole nearby and planted a baby maple.

For months I have waited in fear that the new one would not survive the long, hard winter.

Now tiny leaves are emerging. The maple tree is wicking life from the thawing earth a short way from the location of the old birch.

LIFE amazes me.

The end

HOW BAD COULD IT GET? part 4

(continued from three earlier posts)

In the spring of 2008 the melting snow revealed the ruins left behind by the plumbing repair. Using wheelbarrow and shovel we leveled the scattered heaps of dirt. We planted grass in “the scar” and the birch tree started growing leaves. The barberry bush that had spent the winter with its roots out of the dirt and under the snow looked like it might still have life so I stuck in back in the ground. It grew a few hopeful leaves. I filled in the empty spot in the garden with more flowers.

The place left by the removal of the section of the cement driveway became a mud hole every time it rained—much to the delight of small children. When the dirt was dry it was useful for entertaining little boys with toy trucks. Summer was well underway before we could get a concrete contractor to stop by on his way to bigger and more lucrative jobs. Construction equipment is a lot easier to employ when the weather is rotten. For that reason we were blessed that we needed a backhoe in December and not July. We were also fortunate that our homeowner’s insurance covered most of the cost.

Then, when the weather heated up in August, the leaves fell off the birch tree, despite our efforts to keep it watered. Our neighborhood tree doctor said it was a lost cause. In its weakened state it had been attacked by borer beetles and there was nothing that could be done to save it.

Hang in there. Only one more chapter to the story!