MAY - THE MONTH OF WISHES

It’s the merry month of May. The flowers are blooming, the birds are singing, and the warmth of the sun beckons us outside to smell the newly mowed grass. It’s the dig-in-the-dirt month, too. Everyone is scouring the nurseries for flowers and plants to decorate their porches and flowerbeds.                                                      

Most nights, we can hear our resident owl hooting away, often beyond midnight. He’s taken up a nightly position nearby our bedroom window, possibly on the roof of the house. It’s a comforting, if not slightly eerie sound to lull you to sleep.

I always have too many projects in half-started states when spring arrives. The birdhouses have to be cleaned, refurbished, and set out. My hummingbird feeder is now suspended along our patio for early arrivals. The robins are nesting under our deck and in the rhododendrons. The aggravating grackles have returned, chasing away the small birds at the feeders. The sparrows have taken over the bluebird house. The chaos has begun for our springtime feathered friends.

Central Pennsylvania is in the migrating path of orioles heading north, and I was lucky to catch an orange flash of one clinging to the hummingbird feeder the other morning.

Our weather has also been erratic the last few weeks. Rainy days teaches us to slow down. It’s nature’s way of telling us to shift to a more unhurried pace, interrupting our rush to get things done, but allowing us to experience the joy of spring. If we are lucky, we may even be rewarded with a rainbow stretching from horizon to horizon above budding and blooming trees in hues of green, white, lavender and pink. Oh, how I love this colorful month and warmer temperatures!                 

"May is the month or expectation, the month of wishes, 

the month of hope.”—Emily Bronte

 

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THE HUMBLE PINES

Winter is the time to snuggle down and watch snowflakes fly. Unfortunately, tasks we’ve set aside indoors—lured outside by the long warm days of summer—now call us asking for completion.

As a writer, I have folders of unfinished stories and works shoved into folders, hidden from my eyes and conscience. Many pieces need a new direction, some may need corrections and rewrites, a few may need a trip to the trash can.                                                       

In my search through these fat folders marked, save, I found a poem I wrote for Christmas over a century ago. What I wanted to do with it, or even why I wrote it, is buried somewhere at the bottom of an informational dump in my brain. It’s a Christmas poem and seems
appropriate for December.

                           The Humble Pines

 

'Twas daybreak in the forest,

the winds blew crisp and cold. 

And snow lay in a white-washed 'guise

on oak trees, staunch and old.

The sky was slate. The drifts, knee-deep,

as snowflakes fluttered down.

While high above, the hemlock sighed

a faint melodious sound.

Across the vale a shaft of light
broke through the frigid morn,
And scattered rays of hope and love...
Today, the Child was born.

Then firethorn threw shimmering beads 

amid the sun-kissed laurel.

Bright holly bushes shook their limbs

with shades of red and coral.

And in these woods where nature reigned,

where peace and ice abound,

The stately pines all bent their heads

and bowed their branches down.

In these trying times let’s all send out a humble wish:

 “Let there be peace on earth…and let it begin with us.”

 

 

For some heartwarming reading during the holiday season, 

please check out my "Musical Christmas Series"