Holly Haworth finds beauty and comfort in the changing seasons, in this poetic piece for Emergence Magazine. As she marks her field notebooks with birdsong, blooming flowers, and the taste of fresh blueberries, she reminds us of the necessary cycle of birth, death, and renewal that governs our days on planet Earth.
One day in late February it happens. I am walking under the skeletal trees and see a thin, grass-like stem protruding from the leaf litter. Along the stem are a few narrow leaves, and at the top is a white flower no larger than the iris of my eye. Each rounded petal is striped and tinged at the edges with soft pink. Five stamens sprawl from the flower’s center like the arms of the tiniest starfish; at the end of each filament is a pink anther. The spring beauty’s app…
Holly Haworth finds beauty and comfort in the changing seasons, in this poetic piece for Emergence Magazine. As she marks her field notebooks with birdsong, blooming flowers, and the taste of fresh blueberries, she reminds us of the necessary cycle of birth, death, and renewal that governs our days on planet Earth.
One day in late February it happens. I am walking under the skeletal trees and see a thin, grass-like stem protruding from the leaf litter. Along the stem are a few narrow leaves, and at the top is a white flower no larger than the iris of my eye. Each rounded petal is striped and tinged at the edges with soft pink. Five stamens sprawl from the flower’s center like the arms of the tiniest starfish; at the end of each filament is a pink anther. The spring beauty’s appearance is a miniscule but unmistakable announcement, like a flag staked in time, a precious sight to those who are looking for it. The earth is waking. The season is changing.
The spring beauty, Claytonia virginica, is one of the wildflowers called spring ephemerals, whose flowers wilt away quickly after they’ve opened. The ephemerals occupy a slender but crucial temporal niche for early pollinators. An individual spring beauty’s flower blooms for only three days, but its stamens, which produce pollen, are active for no more than twenty-four hours. We call the seasons “spring” or “summer,” pile a nuanced succession of unfoldings into one long sweep of time. But whole seasons rise and fall in a day, unnamed. I want to notice, to name them.
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