The white star magnolia in my back yard caught my eye last evening. Half of its leaves are gone, and the remaining ones, brown and dry, emphasize that summer’s gone. The party’s over. Nothing more to see here. Move along.
But each branch ends in a fuzzy bud. The shrub spent all summer getting them ready, and they will bloom next spring, white, exploding fistfuls of energy sometime after crocuses and before lilacs.
Through the winter, when the cold and gray become too much, I will be reminded: spring will come. It is already prepared for.
Update: here’s how it looked the next spring.
