Hallelujah - Spring!

In our local park this week, the ornamental cherries are in full bloom and this tree in particular caught my attention. Not content to display its candyfloss blossom on its branches, it has bloomed all the way down its trunk too! Hallelujah - Spring! 

The bees are buzzing, the chiffchaffs are back and so far I’ve spotted brimstone, comma and peacock butterflies. And isn’t it wonderful to feel the warmth of the sun on our skin again? 

Every spring we witness nature bouncing back after its season of rest. Amidst all the anxieties about our impact on the environment, I have faith in creation’s innate exuberance and adaptability. Like its Creator, nature seems to say, ‘Despite what you do to me, Resurgam – I will rise again!’ It reminds me of Philip Larkin’s spring poem, The Trees. 

The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.