Spring Calf

Great, wide, beautiful, wonderful world, 

With the wonderful water around you curled....

Matthew Browne

First day on the planet

Your little legs are wobbly—your big eyes 

Taking it all in, wondering at every new thing,

Your coat warm with sunshine.

Your ears are large to catch 

All the new sounds, even your own voice,

Your pink nose learning the smell of milk

Your white face registering surprise.

The world is big, bold, and beautiful,

The grass soft and greening

The sky looms huge—unending and blue 

and we are just as amazed at you!

Wakened

Spring unlocks the flowers to paint the laughing soil. 

Reginald Heber

Spring comes up and smacks us awake

With scents of daffodils, with colors that startle

Shout aloud—Hallelujah!

First Green

For lo, the winter is  past, the rain is over and gone; 

the flowers appear on the earth;

 the time of the singing of the birds is come.

Song of Solomon 2:11-12

Even before the grass blades struggle up

And teen boys sigh at the vision 

Of lawns to mow—lawns green and plush—pulsing

Growing faster than

A five-year-old boy thinks he can run;

Before that—in March—daffodils whiter than 

The snow of December,

Ruffled like little girl's Easter Sunday petticoats,

Are full of green—green—miraculous—marvelous—green.

Jessie and Grandpa

A happy family is but an earlier heaven

Sir John Bowring

After all the stories

I feel I know this guy

He's my mama's grandpa, Folks,

The apple of her eye!

I've heard about his silly jokes

Heard his awesome tales

Of fishing and flying and other feats

Of fishes bigger than whales!

I'm glad I got to meet him

To climb up in his lap, to hear his voice

To know he's real

My sweet old funny grandpap!

Welcome

A sweet new blossom of humanity, fresh fallen from

 God's own home to flower on earth. 

Gerald Massey

Welcome to the world, my sweet pea,

Welcome to love and welcome to family

Welcome to the world of spring peepers singing

To daffodils and garden seeds and splashing through puddles!

Welcome to firefly-chasing on summer nights

To camp-outs and hot days and running with your first dog.

 Welcome to autumn bonfires and marshmallows on sticks,

 To tag and pumpkins and jumping in piles of brown leaves

Welcome to Christmas wonder and toy trains, 

To snow men and sleds, to stockings and surprises 

Welcome to the seasons and the years.

Welcome to our house. Welcome to our arms.

Welcome to the world.

White Roses

A man who could make one rose...

would be accounted most wonderful; 

 God scatters countless such flowers us! 

Martin Luther

Dressed in springtime finery

there she goes;

Nothing sweeter than a rose!

She is wearing her rose-colored glasses;

Down the rose-lined lane she passes.

A rose by any other name would still be sweet.

A poem without a rose is incomplete.

Roses are red, or so they say,

A rose a day keeps the doctor at bay.

Take time to stop and smell the roses;

The rose, the dearest of all the posies!

The fair sweet rose—a flower divine

A rose in time saves mind.

Whiskers on kittens and raindrops on roses,

Sweet as a newborn baby's toe-ses.

Sing of the glorious rose—I try

Tiger Lilies, lion-eyes, and roses, oh my!

Pink Rose

The grass withers, the flower fades, 

but the word of the Lord endures forever

Isaiah 40:8

How soon pass the blossom and

 the blade—how soon gone

Beauty of the Lord remains

Green Green Green

Green, Green, Green

By Elece Hollis

Springtime invites you to believe anew. 

To realize that the same Lord who renews the trees 

 with buds and blossoms is ready to renew your life 

with hope and courage.

 Charles Swindoll

Daffodils and Forsythia

Are the year's yellows

Just before the sprout, the shout,

the coming-out of the green, green, green.

Crocus

Spring is God's way of saying hello.

First flowers of the winter's end

You shoot up—refuse to spend

Another moment underground

You have heard the merry sound

Of bluebirds singing overhead,

Felt winter rising from his bed,

You know the sun is shining bright

You strain upwards toward the light.

Poke your spikes of green up through

The waiting ground and cold snow too

You come up early to relay

That Spring is finally on his way.

Sunshine

Sunshine

By  Elece Hollis

Faith is the root, hope is the stem; love is the perfect flower.

F.B. Meyer

As far as I have seen 

Inside the world of flora

 There is not so fine a miracle 

As the sunflower—It's a sonnet

A great bright swirl of sunshine

petals like a bonnet

Face a spray of golden joy

Smile of glory on it!

Roan

No one is rich enough to do without a neighbor. 

Danish Proverb

Red roan stands along the fence,

Though she has a large pasture,

She watches us drive by.

If she could, I think she would wave,

Wave like a child who likes to greet passersby,

Like a boy waiting to see Dad's car 

Pull up the road and into the drive,

Like a woman watching for a delivery truck

To bring her mail order,

Like a young girl waiting for a friend to arrive,

Like Gramps watching who will pass his way.

If she could wave, I think she would.

Summer Dream Quilt

Faith has to do with things that are not seen and hope 
with things that are not in hand.
Saint Thomas Aquinas

Hanging on the line to air

Flapping in the breeze,

A quilt bright with colors–

Leafy green of grass and trees,

Colors of midsummer days,

Mauve and pink of blooms,

Yellow of sweet sunshine,

Pieced in winter's fire-lit rooms

In her mind's eye spring had come

Patterns and shapes she fit,

Into a bright and happy dream

Thread and needle to picture it.

Rain on My Window

When God sorts out the weather and sends rain, 

Why, rain's my choice.

 James Whitcomb Riley

Driveway dark with wet,

Brown grass wicking the moisture,

Trees drinking it in with arms spread wide,

Roof serenading me with drumming,

Raindrops washing the window for me.

This weather is washing my soul,

Renewing and repairing my senses,

Freshening the prairie like wind off the ocean. 

I savor the clean taste of it,

Listen to the staccato sound of it,

Feel the clean wake of it,

Smell the soft scent of it,

See the sweet hope in each drop.

Sprouts

Beginning is half done.

Robert Schuller

Amazing

That they don't freeze

Up they pop–

Green sprouts

Ready for spring 

Not willing to wait

For warm days and sun-filled skies.

In February, when snow 

Is a coverlet of pure white,

They raise their leaves

Like flags of victory

Come on, Beauties,

Even a frost won't lessen

The wonder 

Of your yellow trumpets

Singing:

Spring, Spring, Spring!