Abundance

LUSH (though that word feels so rich in my mouth, so wondrous, so full, so complete) doesn't do the plants in our yards justice this year.

We have six or seven rhododendron bushes in our yards--two in front of our front porch, one to the east in the front and 3 around our back deck. Rhododendron is the state flower of West Virginia, by the way, though some minority of folks back home call it mountain laurel. It is wild and profuse along the mountain roads where I come from, deep pink in its glory. And our rhododendron this year are more blossom than leaves, huge blossoms, some as big as my head (and I have a big head--7 and 5/8, thank you very much). I've never seen anything like it. When you sit on our back deck, the blossoms hang down around you from a ten foot high bush. And the bees are busy indeed, but they won't bother you because, they too, realize the abundance of this year's growth.

And our snowball tree (I don't know the real name for it--the blossoms are round and white and usually the size of a tennis ball) but this year they are the size of softballs and are nearly weighing down the branches to the ground.

And our two broom bushes (again, I know no other name) one in the front yard and one in the back, have not simply recovered from the damage of the winter's snow--they are luxuriating in their yellow flowers, tinted with red in the middle.

The ground cover purple flowers and the many ferns are way ahead of where they should be, considering what a cool spring it has been.

The now gone tulips and jonquils were astonishing as well. Even the 80 foot horse chestnut tree in our front yard that I thought was dead ten years ago is full and flowering, dropping worm looking things all over the yard.

Have any of you noticed in your yard, or driving around Connecticut, how lush and abundant this year is turning out?

The deep purple (almost black) irises in the front yard, beside the drive-way, are about to pop. They seem taller and sturdier than I ever remember.

Everything seems full of life and abundant.

I don't know if you'd pondered what all this floral abundance is about. I know Bern and I have, wondering over it, comparing theories.

My theory is this: the odd hot spell two months ago and all the rain lately.

Her's has more to do with the way the winter went.

Who knows?

But, for whatever reason, our yards are chock-a-block full of Abundance.

There is a poem by Anne Sexton that ends like this:

"...Then the well spoke to me.
It said: Abundance is scooped from abundance,
yet abundance remains."

That's how I feel, wherever I go these days, about the lush, abundance all around me.

Maybe it's just more than the plants. Maybe Abundance is just showing up....

Who knows? Something to ponder as the heat sets in this day....