Piedmont Spring

Spring has come, with life emerging from the soil beneath dead leaves and branches bare just days ago. Each day brings subtle changes in the swelling buds of trees, coloring the hillsides in red and beige and palest green. One day the understory in the woods is bare. A day later viburnums and buckeyes display the delicate green of tiny new leaves.

Magenta buds cluster along the crooked branches of redbuds. Trout lilies swim in thousands down the slopes near the creeks, showing speckled blue-green leaves and tiny pale yellow flowers facing down. Daffodils shout spring in the suburbs; trout lilies whisper the resurrection of life in the Piedmont woods.

Windflowers sway in the breeze sweeping along the creek, tiny and white, sized for fairies. Spring - fleeting, faithful, miraculous.