The Crocus

I have been below ground all winter patiently waiting among the roots and frozen Earth. While the trees changed their colors and dropped their leaves as if waving so long- rest well, as they go into their yearly hibernation. The sunlight disappeared from the sky earlier and earlier in the day. The last cool breaths of Autumn giving way to the dusk of the year, we bedded down to await more lively times.

Winter was long and cold this year, the pressures of the blanket of snow and leaf litter kept me safe from the harshest of it. I miss witnessing the life of the forest, most animals isolate themselves in their dens to weather the worst of the winter freeze and storms, or leave altogether seeking somewhere new, somewhere warm. It is rare that even their foot falls keep me company in the hush and chill of the darkest part of the year, but I can feel times changing once more.

I could hardly contain my excitement as the snows melted and icy cold pre-spring rains seeped fresh minerals into the soil all around me, leached from the bones and fur of an unfortunate mouse or other small animal caught and deposited on the ground above me in the pressed form of a pellet by a great horned owl and her chicks living in the hollow of the oak that shelters us in the bleakest months of winter.

The time for sleeping is almost over! I feel the Earth warming, the energy from the sun renewing the vitality I have so longed for. I've been cloistered in my bulb awaiting the day I can come back to the surface, to real life. I can feel it returning to the woodland floor, all manner of creatures reluctant to awake just yet from their long hibernation yawning and drowsy.

I push my first fronds through the soil, finding my way to the surface to greet the sun for the first time, to smile through the yet bare branches of the great oak that shades the forest floor where I reside, nestled safely among the roots and fallen branches. The oak still sleeps, but the roots of my community trill and tangle with excitement as we stretch, brand new, through the leaf litter deeper into the ground and reaching up into the open air!

Ahh, the first Rays of sunlight! The first caress of a breeze! Frost clings stubbornly to the various grasses that mottle the forest floor before it too yields to the sun, as the great snows had in days and weeks before, melting into sparkling dew to serve a new purpose.

A doe is nearby grazing on the fresh shoots of the new greenery sprouting along the creekside that meanders it's way through the forest. The creek still has shelves of ice in the shadows of it's banks where the sun above and quickly moving water below hasn't been able to reach yet.

The grasses don't mind the soon-to-be mother's nibbles, they are playing their part in nourishing her and the continuation of new life she is building as she makes room for the next generation of grasses that have not yet made it to the surface to nourish her young before the leaves bud on the trees giving a new and more plentiful source of food.

What is spring if not a continuation of life? My part isn't to impart nutrients to the woodland creatures, but to the insects that carry love letters and memoirs to and from myself and the others in the forest.

The quiet beginnings are my favorite, before the brambles have a chance to line the paths animals and their young blaze, before the frogs and toads sing their songs of Summer in the dips and pools and streams of the forest or the cicadas let out their piercing cries. Before the squirrels and chipmunks begin busying themselves with collecting acorns and nuts from the oak that marks my rooted home and other trees nearby for the next winter. Before the butterflies arrive to flash their colors and dance from bloom to Summer bloom, the bees and I have our chance to reacquaint and celebrate the end of harder times in our own quiet way.

As I reminisce how all the plants and animals fit in neatly to their niches and all have a part to play in the coming ballet of life in full bloom and splendor in my shaded neighborhood, the owl returns to her nest cooing softly to her owlets to nap the day away with her chicks in the hollow of the tree, and a Robin somewhere in the naked brush whistles to their neighbors that they have returned and so has spring.

They serenade the sparsely populated grove, animals waking up, still shaking off the slumber of winter, the Robins share the stories of their travels to warmer places far away as they collect bits of flotsom and discarded fur to build their nests. They are a welcome and energetic change of pace to the sluggishness we are leaving behind and herald in the new season.

Time to wake up! My purple and white petals unfurl to form a small cup offering sweet nectar and vital energy to the bees in my shaded grove that visit and tickle and buzz with a renewed sense of purpose in their own dawn of spring and the duties they perform intimately and efficiently in pollinating the new growth in my humble patch of foliage.

The light scent of my petals beckon them near, as they work they murmur tales and news from other parts of the woods too far away for me to communicate with directly as my roots only extend so far and tangle with only so many others. My visit with the bees comes to an end with a kiss for good luck and I send with them the first of many messages this season, addressed to the fellow unfurling flowers celebrating spring nearby and far away in the still cool morning, my message to them is simple, winter is over and I am here!

My part is small in the grand scheme of things, the simple flag bearer signaling that better times are coming and a witness to a new cycle of life. I am the first flower of spring, the first splash of vibrant color on the forest floor, I am the Crocus.