ALMANAC APRIL 2025
Almanac
By Ashley Walshe
April is a drift of dandelions, cheerful and bright.
Can you hear them giggling? Listen. It helps if you slip off your shoes.
Somehow, bare feet in the cool grass, you can access new frequencies: the whir of tiny wings, the swelling of tender buds, the rhythmic flow of nectar.
Wiggle your toes. Breathe into your belly. Surrender to the urge to lie down.
Yes, that’s better. Draped across the softening earth, the sun on your skin is medicinal. You close your eyes, brush fingertips across feathery blossoms, let your inner child run wild.
Perceive the world through the eyes of a dandelion. Anticipate the tickle of bee feet, the tender kiss of mourning cloak, the ecstasy of thunder and rain.
Are you giggling yet?
Listen.
The song of spring rises in all directions.
In the distance, a chorus of peepers rouses the burgeoning woods. Wet and trembling, a swallowtail clings to its chrysalis, pumping crumpled wings at the speed of grace. A bluebird whistles tu-a-wee.
Open your eyes. Turn your gaze toward the flowering dogwood, the mighty tulip, the small, ambrosial apple tree. Everywhere you look, spring spills forth.
The dandelions are chattering now. Turn a cartwheel, one squeals. Dance for rain, blurts another. Pick me, whispers a third.
Smiling, you reach for a fat, yellow blossom, pluck the stem, tuck the flower behind your ear. Eyes closed once more, you drift into blissful reverie. Among this sea of sprightly yellow orbs, you drink in the playful hum of this budding season, let the song revive your every cell.
Floriography
The Victorians used tussie-mussies (nosegays) to express their true feelings. Apple blossoms and dogwood were code for I like you. Purple violets murmured true love. Tulips? Well, that would depend on the color, of course.
While the language of flowers has withered in these less-than-modest times, we can’t help but ascribe meaning. Surely, every gifted flower says, I’m thinking of you. But what is it that you hear in the presence of flame azalea, redbud, cherry blossom? What do you glean from the iris and bluebell?
The Great Egg Hunt
There, nestled in the branches of dogwood, sugar maple, hawthorn and pine; in gutters, rain boots and dense shrubs; within the cavities of dead and living trees: eggs, eggs, beautiful eggs. Creamy white ones, speckled brown (chickadee, cardinal and nuthatch). Bright and muted blue ones (robin and bluebird). Pale green with rust-colored blotches (mockingbird). And guess who’s out searching for them? Opossums, snakes, skunks, racoons, crows and jays.
Spring is as harsh as it is lovely. And, yet, this circle of life is indeed what makes each spark of creation all the more precious.
