Take a Look Around You

Despite the fact my garden looks like a bomb exploded in it, signs of spring are emerging. Look around- the saucer magnolia, red bud, and Chickasaw plum trees are blooming. My daffodils are about to pop open in Pensacola, while up in the Alabama country the snow drops are in full bloom and the daffodils are in tight bud form. God is always pointing the way to new life and resurrection- just look around. How are you finding renewal this year?

“Daffodils” (1804)

I WANDER’D lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch’d in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed — and gazed — but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

By William Wordsworth (1770-1850).