Meaning in Spring


I walk through the garden on the beaten path of the many who have lost themselves in cold, frozen, darkest days of winter. The winter has been long. I am the dead twigs. I am the dry leaves. All around is evidence of beauty that once was but is no longer. As I walk I notice little plaques stuck in the ground, placed there to label what once grew there but since has succumbed to the frost of this life: little tombstones marking the graves of once-blosssoming things. As I walk, I look closer at all the dead things. The skeleton trees start to speak words of life. From their weary branches sprout buds and soon blossoms.

Through crunchy brown leaves pierce fresh green stalks. It is then that I realize the plaques are not tombstones at all. Though they reference the past, they do not stop there. They are bold declarations of all that is still to come: the beauty that will be restored! Although for a while, the plants that they mark are buried deep in the ground, soon from their earthen tombs new life will appear. And suddenly spring is everywhere I look. The ground beneath me sings of rebirth. Spring has come! Yes, spring is here! It does not come fast, no the growth is quite slow, but steadily life is breathed into the garden. What we thought had been lost is now resurrected. And our frost-bitten, winter-worn, cold, buried hearts rejoice that spring's life-breath is free.








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