It feels like it’s been raining every day since the snow melted in Portland. Truthfully, I’m going a little crazy, waiting for the warm weather to finally kick in. At least the city is awash in tulips. That takes a little of the the sting out of it.
It got bright — not quite sunny — for about an hour this afternoon. I took advantage of the momentary break in precipitation. Grabbing my cameras, I took a stroll through my neighborhood and beyond. The tulips were there to greet me. Thank goodness.
They don’t seem to mind the rain so much. It’s the chill that keeps them closed. Luckily for me and my camera, they’re just as lovely on the outside. They’re easy to find, too. People tend to plant them right out front where they can scream “spring is here” as loud as a plant can yell.
Sylvia Plath wrote:
“Before they came the air was calm enough,Coming and going, breath by breath, without any fuss.Then the tulips filled it up like a loud noise.”
The rest of the poem is pretty morose, like most of her beautiful work, but those lines seem as true as anything today. The flowers are chanting at the gloomy sky. They want the sun. They demand it.
So do I.