Early Blossoming

By Donna Hruska

There is a moment in springtime, in our area it is the first week in May, when everything in nature is suddenly abloom. It begins with the first deep warm rain of the season that brings sudden green to the grass, as if each lawn had just had an overnight dyeing. The trees, that until now have only budded suggestively, unfold this year’s leaves and hang them out in the breeze that wafts up from the south.

Then the floral display begins. Tulips, that unnoticed, have been sending up shoots and building buds, suddenly burst, their stately mien and grace somehow managing to keep their brilliant colors from being riotous. Their gaiety spreads to the flowering shrubs which in soft profusion don their particular colors—bright pink or white with yellow centers for the honeysuckles, purple or white for the lilacs. Snowball bushes, which seem to have captured a stray bit of winter, magnolias, forsythia, spiraea—all step forward with their promises of a brighter season. The most brilliant of all is the flowering crab. A moderate sized tree, of graceful proportions, it covers itself with blossoms, small, delicate and in perfect taste, but of the brightest crimson pink. Wherever it is situated, in front, back or side yard, it instantly attracts the eye, as if, in this one week of the year, it will adorn itself in regal grandeur, accept the homage that is its due before changing to a luxuriant, but less spectacular garb for the rest of the year. Its scent insinuates itself subtly, unlike the heady lilac, never giving too much, always leaving the desire for more.

Slowly, the springtime blossoms fade, scatter carelessly upon the ground, to be replaced by bright new shoots of green. Spring, with its brilliant promises, perhaps too rich for constant consumption, eases quietly into that lush, but more stable season, summer.

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Donna Hruska
2711 2nd Private Road
Flossmoor, Illinois 60422

Approximately 340 Words