Spring's second wave

In praise of petals purple and white

Marc Chagall, Lilies of the Valley, 1916, Ellen Thesleff, Elegy (Elegia), head of a girl with flowers, 1925, Wisteria Floribunda, Linda Pastan

For weeks the world has been awash in yellows and pinks; colour has cracked the cold, sleeping ground.

“The flowerets look edible before they open / like columns of sugar dots on tiny strips / I bought as a child.”¹

The celebration has nearly ceased—magnolia blossoms turn into brown slugs of petal on the sidewalk. On the Kwanzan cherry trees, rosettes of bud have come and gone. Sakura petals in the wind become beautiful pink litter. Every flower, writes May Sarton in Journal of a Solitude, holds the whole mystery in its short cycle. How true this is, especially for the lily of the valley and lilac, who arrive fashionably late to spring’s party, painting our peripheral purple and white.