Whence Spring's Beauty

It’s October, we find time to go by the spring-house to get the tulips. It is time to prepare for winter and the inevitable coming of spring. The bulbs look hopelessly dead and ugly, rather pitiful in fact. We nurture them tenderly. fall gardener tucks the bulbs in bed till spring's alarm. Through many snows and chilling temperatures, we do not consider at all what is taking place under the ground. One warm March day we see tiny noses poking up through the soil around the back porch. By April, we are sitting in the swing admiring the result of loving labor of last fall. seeing the blooms brings to mind dried-up bulbs How could such ugliness have turned to such beauty in the cold, hard earth? As May approaches bringing other flowers, our short-lived tulips drop their blossoms and say good-bye. But as we've discovered, the wisest of gardeners do not hasten to bother the beauty in its passing. dust to dust all blossoms shrivel with time food for the soil wilting leaves nourish the bulb hidden in the ground The bulb remains unattractive throughout the whole cycle of growth. Along in mid-July when all external signs of life have faded, we remove the unsightly bulbs from their bed, putting them back in the spring-house until fall. Without them, there will be no blossoms next spring. It is the care we show the bulb which bursts into the beauty we bless in time. entry for contest: Carlton D. Kennedy's Love of Nature