On the Threshold of Spring (and of Too Much Information)

 

The Trees (1974)

The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too.
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

by Philip Larkin

https://www.poetrybyheart.org.uk/poems/the-trees

The above picture is not really the kind of tree the poet is writing about, but I thought I would post it as a memorial to our lost pine.  Once it is balcony weather, I will be missing it, as will the birds who used to perch in it.

When I go for the odd drive/outing, usually for medical purposes these days, I note the skeletal trees everywhere, each one a work of art, and think that soon they will be covered in a fuzz of green, as the new leaves begins to grow and shape themselves.

Dylan Thomas spoke in a poem about the "the force that through the green fuse drives the flower".  That force is the spirit of the Sovereign Lord Jehovah, who is the Grand Creator.

We are surrounded by miracles.

I also wonder, sometimes aloud, if one day, a thousand years from now, Col and I will be wandering through some lovely woodland and come across the fragment of a road and remember that once we had to journey on it, many times, for hospital appointments.

Sickness will be a thing of the past then.

On a more mundane level - and as sickness is still prevalent among us damaged children of Adam - I have tried the new med and it has made me really ill. I spent most of early Wednesday morning in the loo and then, to my horror, when I rang up our Bible student to check that she was OK for the morning study, she told me all the plumbing on the estate had packed up!  Not one of her 3 loos was viable.

NOOO!!!!  Not that morning of all mornings.  Anyway, she still wanted to see us - was looking forward to it - so off we went.  Although it did not seem there could be anything left inside me, I took two instant imodiums before we set off, just in case.  (Sorry if this has all headed into the "too much information" arena.)  When we drove in we had to squeeze past two gigantic tankers working on the drains, and as we left we drove past two more tankers driving in, the original ones having left, presumably with a full load. 

Quite a problem. I only hope it's sorted now. We have the privilege of taking all these things for granted until they go wrong - just as we take having clean water coming out of our taps.

And once the whole earth is under the loving rule of the Kingdom of God, everyone will be cared for properly - it will be managed perfectly, with love.  I hope so much we will all be there to find out just how wonderful it will be.