The Paschal Moon

 

Winter is trying to have the last word today.  The last two days brought an icy wind, seeming determined to hold back spring.  Today the wind is whipping the daffodils, sending the wind chimes on the porch into a frenzy and howling through the chimney in my bedroom.  I think I dreamed last night I was in a Bronte novel – listening to the wuthering wind across the moors.  It was the full moon, the Worm moon of March, or the Paschal moon of this year, the moon that determines the date for Easter. I went out late to fasten the dogs in the yard and stood for a few minutes watching the thin clouds scurry across the face of that moon.  I heard wild geese in the distance and an owl hooting in the woods. I suppose this is redbud winter, the first in a list of what we in the country call “cold spells” that appear before summer’s domination.  No matter what winter says, spring is marching forward.

I was in those woods earlier in the day, climbing down the steep hillside to visit my enchanted wildflower spot.  The bluebells were putting on a show, their pink buds and blue blossoms nodding at the sun.  The trout lilies were making their best attempt to outshine them, their graceful yellow faces reaching for the light, and the rue anemone carpeted their space like a sprinkle of snow.  The trout lilies are the prettiest this year that I have seen in several years; something about the weather this winter and into spring must have given them an extra boost. 

A scatter of yellow violets peek out of the leaves, the trillium are open and a few Dutchman’s britches still remain.  The shooting star has four clusters of buds this year.  I am tempted to put a fence around it to protect it from damage, but that would probably offend Mother Nature, who likes to care for her charges in her own way.    Still to come are the columbine’s gold, the purple of the larkspur and the endearing shoots of the Jack in the pulpit.  The mystery foliage of what looks like some kind of lily are up a few inches.  I don’t know what it is and I have never been able to catch it in bloom to find out.  There is one lonely plant, just above the rest of the flowers and I don’t know where it came from.  Maybe this year the puzzle will be solved.

I sat on my rock and watched the branch trickle along just down the hill, listening to birds sing and squirrels chatter.  This is the beginning of Holy Week, when our hearts break again at the memory of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, then pause for a moment on Saturday before the glorious celebration of sunrise on Easter Sunday.  There is no better reminder of Easter than a garden in spring, when buds that appear to the eye to be lifeless and finished get an unseen signal from deep at their roots and begin to swell.   Soon enough, those nondescript buds will unfold into leaves that give summer shade and then autumn’s fierce colors before they fall to replenish the soil and begin the cycle again.  And isn’t that a perfect reminder of Easter’s promise?