Chrysanthemums

We thought our mums were goners.

Around this time last year, they were incredible; big, bright, bushy bundles of burgundy, purple and gold. I’m no gardener or horticulturalist, but those flowers made me smile. I took a great deal of pleasure and pride in them (even though I knew they got along perfectly well without me). And, then winter came.

The mums ran their course, withered and withdrew to sleep and dream of – well, whatever it is dormant flowers dream about.

When my wife and I got around to cleaning up the yard this spring, it didn’t look like they’d made it. They froze. Hard. A few nights of minus-thirty will do that. And, we kicked ourselves. Hard. We hadn’t insulated them well enough. We’d cut them back too late, or too low, or … They were gone.

No green blush. No tender shoots broadening into leaves. No tiny buds as summer stretched itself across the Peace Garden State. We dug a few up that got just too sad to look at anymore.

I went to the flowerbed the other day – much like the women to the tomb – to care for the dead. When I arrived – much like the women at the tomb – it was my turn to be shocked by the new life, the unexpected life, the impossible life, the life-from-death that I found there waiting for me.

I’ve tried to capture and share this experience in a few lines inspired by the poetry of Bashō, Buson, and Issa. I think the formal beauty of haiku is its call to us to pay close and honest attention to the world around us, to one another, and to the deep currents of Spirit within ourselves. Enjoy!

Golden autumn blossoms
as leaves fall and trace God’s name—
Hope’s eternal spring*

*With apologies to Alexander Pope