Spring will come. It has come every year that I have been alive. If it has been a really hard winter and Spring has suffered she comes in crying.

As a line in a Rolling Stone song goes “I watch as tears go by like falling rain”. Spring is like that. Sometimes she sobs enough to defrost the ground quickly.

When she is feeling more peaceful she begins her work slowly and gently. First, the pussy willows, then the crocus, the snowdrops and the green shoots of the daffodils.

Then her sister radiant Sun appears. Together they take out their paint boxes and paint our part of the earth green using many shades and hues.

The ground begins to see grass, fragile at first but getting stronger as the days past.

Then there is the forsythia bush. They both have a fondness for this one so it is one of the first flowering bushes to appear. Friends and family say to each other “I saw a forsythia bush today. Yea! It is a sure sign that Spring is here. Joy is ours! Joy is ours.

The sisters are just getting started. Now come the flowering trees and bushes. The azaleas, sometimes the pink and white branches intertwined, the cherry blossoms and the dogwoods; they are all so resplendent, so beautiful, and so breathtaking.

Then come the lilacs, the peonies that perfume the air; you can bury your face in them drunk with the fragrance and the beauty of the flowers. How can such a miracle come to be?

Next they work on flowers not so close to the ground. Daffodils are now gathering strength and blossoming and after that their cousins the tulips are coming forth in so many colors it is mind-boggling. There is one so dark that it actually looks black. If you asked Spring and Sun why there is a black like tulip they would giggle and laugh and say because we can.

Spring is an event to be anticipated. The thought of Spring gets us through miserable days of numbing cold, dangerous roads, mounds of snow, actual blizzards. For her visit we try to put aside burdensome problems, to put our houses in order, to take a two-month vacation from grinding life.

When she finally comes we restore ourselves, reminding ourselves that true beauty is what all man made art is measured against. Her visit is sheer joy. If there were an ode to Spring it would be “Spring is Here.  Spring is Here. Halleluiah, Halleluiah.”