Poppies and shade
Staying with the blessings of each season
The tunnel of green beckons me in, promising shelter and respite from the heat.
It’s only 7am, but it’s already warm enough that sweat is pouring into my eyes as I run along the raised path.
And yet, I find, to my surprise, that I cannot fully enter into the promised relief, held back by flickers of golden piles covering slats of wood, cold winds blowing, grey skies descending.
“You need to prepare for the descent into the long dark, for the bitter cold of winter here,” my body insists.
How do I hold onto this greenery tightly enough to sustain me through those brutal months?
I’m not used to leaves and flowers turning up for short times, then disappearing.
Australian natives have leaves all year round, and their constancy is my norm, their stability comforting, their bright flowers energising.
Here their disappearance is promised even now, just as they’ve finished unfurling and blossoming.
It makes me want to hold on even tighter.
I think of the delicate poppy, which my eldest picked for me on the way home from school yesterday, one petal already fallen after the journey in his warm fist, the others following shortly after his delighted presentation.
They aren’t made for being tightly clasped.
The attempt to guard them, to keep them for longer, speeds up their rate of decay.
I never knew that trying to take them home was the start of the end.
They are made for admiring where they are, for a season.
This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs.
Click here to view the next post in the series "Green."
This was such a lovely reflection "They are made for admiring where they are, for a season."
"They aren’t made for being tightly clasped.
The attempt to guard them, to keep them for longer, speeds up their rate of decay." So thought provoking!