The International Writers Magazine:Spring Glory

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Bluebell Spring • Marianne de Nazareth The rustle of Spring and new life!The trees are leafless. Standing like sentinels against the grey, rainy skies. Bare branches like lifeless fingers, pointing into the fog laden air. It is cold and darkness descends early making life more depressing and uninteresting. Daylight is at a premium and unfortunately is over in a flash. Then suddenly, the weather begins to change as March approaches. The daffodils poke their golden heads out of the ground. Lines and lines of them nod their heads bravely in the cold merciless breeze. Winter has still not left and it clings to the earth, holding it still in its merciless grip. We long to shed our winter coats - the boots, the mufflers and caps. We long for the sun to come out of the clouds and bring its life giving rays and reawaken the earth.

The days plod on to April. There’s snow for Easter after decades in Swansea and the freezing rain slices through the morning air stinging our faces as we wait at the bus stop after Easter service. We thankfully send up a prayer for the perennial sun that is always there in our part of the world that we take for granted. Is summer ever going to come to England we wonder?

Strangely this is a parallel most of us can draw with our lives. When winter holds us in her grip, our hearts and minds lie dead and cold. Maybe it was the death of a loved one. Maybe we feel trapped and are unable to see beyond the ponderous rat race of our daily lives. Maybe our jobs are dull and lifeless like winter and we feel the lack of novelty to bring joy into our days. Maybe our relationship with our spouse seems empty, with the joy and love of the early years, just a memory in the photo album.

As soon as this happens we must see the warning signs and simulate a spring in our lives. Simulate new life, simulate colour and freshness which will perk up our lives like those golden daffodils nodding in the breeze. Like that black bird singing its heart out, early in the morning, waking me with its throaty warble. Like that feathery cloud scudding along in a bright blue sky. We have to help ourselves, we have to look for ways to overcome our despair and look to a new tomorrow.

I decide to wake up early in the morning and take a brisk walk along the woods in the student village. I can see that the trees are beginning to unfurl their leaves in silvery shafts as the days go by. The daisies and dandelions make a delightful sprinkle of colour across the unending freshly cut lawns. The days are growing longer and daylight doesn’t seem to want to wane till way past eight at night. A weak sun shows itself every now and again and the black bird seems to have acquired a few more riffs to his warble.

Suddenly I notice that the woods are scented. There is a delightful purplish blue haze along the edge and beneath the trees. Going up closer I see seas of blue bells, millions of them with their perfectly upturned petals. It is a sight which is so perfect, it becomes impossible to express it in words. Poets and painters can replicate what I see better I think as I stand lost in the incredible sight. My heart sings with the wonder of it all.

You can have spring rustle into your life if you let it. You can let the golden daffodils and the sparkling Blue bells, brighten up your dark and wintery mind, banishing away pain and suffering. There can be no happiness without pain, there can be no joy without sorrow. If we had no winter then would we bask in the joy of spring? It is when we taste adversity, then and only then, can we enjoy the wonder and beauty that is Spring.
© Marianne de Nazareth
mde.nazareth@gmail.com

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