You'll notice the magnolia first, blooming ardently this year, making up for lost time and the single earnest bud it gave the first year with us. The maple, dotted in maiden green, feeling the springtime lightness of buds before the baroque leaves come down. Snowdrops. The beginnings of all the varieties of lilies: tiger, plantain, day. Chives and garlic grass run perfectly wild across the lawn. Rhododendron - buried to its neck in winter - now showing improbable brilliant pink.
And then the garden beds. The lowly onion sets, brave against the danger of late frost, waving over new-raked earth. The immortal rhubarb. The compost: our dead come alive again. And there are secrets too: seeds cast, a black promise under black earth, known only to the gardener. Wapsipinicon heirloom peach tomatoes. Potted basil under glass. Lavender. Cosmos. Red milkweed. Echinacea. The waiting. The watch we keep. All part of the ritual of the season that has come.
