Seasons' March

I greet the morning with anticipation, bubbles of excitement inside, straining forward to walk outside and stroll among the flowers my hands have planted and cared for over the past years, the weigela from our youngest daughter, tomato plants from her daughter, the dill we placed nearby to warn off bugs, the orange rose bush from Aunt Juanita, as happy in my yard as hers, my mother’s petunias, flowering almond, and variegated sedum, four Alberta spruce, grown several times their size as when my brother gave them to me, prior to his quiet acceptance of death after he lost the battle with brain tumor. A hibiscus bush, with its dinner- plate-size blooms, the longed-for weeping willow, living strong where two others before had perished, a pink, wild-rose ground cover, spreading more each summer, the crape myrtle my husband hauled in from another state, azalea bushes thriving after many false starts, spring clematis in deep burgundy, and another September one of miniature white stars, framing the arch given to me by our only son-in-law on Mother’s day, the red rose climber from our eldest son, mums everywhere, joining the celebration of season’s end, as I now contemplate the closeness and inevitability of my own.