The Garden Path In Spring...

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Yes, it is Spring!

This is what spring looks like at 6,750 feet above sea level, even in California.

And there is a path, and a garden, somewhere under that blanket of white.

I know this because I see the outline of the garden bench at the turn in the path, and the lacy limbs of the bare-naked Quaking Aspen just behind it.

To the left of the aspen is the Giant Sequoia I planted twenty-some years ago, a similar-aged Colorado Blue Spruce in the left foreground, and the much younger White Fir between them.

I also know that beneath all this rests lovely native Mariposa Lilies, Scarlet Penstemon, Indian Paintbrush, Rose Sage, Humboldt Lilies, Crimson Columbine, California Fuschia, Wild Blue Iris, Antelope Bush, Western Wallflower, Bumble-Bee Penstemon, Desert Blue Bells, Snowberry, Grape-Soda Lupine, Wright's Buckwheat, Hedgehog Cactus, Wild Onion, Green-Leaf Manzanita, Prickly Poppy, Prickly Pear Cactus, Sulfur-Colored Buckwheat, Coyote Mint, Firecracker Penstemon, Blue Flax, Mountain Phacelia, Evening Primrose, California Poppies and so many other old friends.

They're cozy now in their frozen beds, it's where they belong, how they came to be what they are, and when the snow melts they'll come out to dazzle us, and our little part of heaven, with an astounding display of fecundity.

There will be thousands of shameless plants exposing their gorgeously colorful flowering sexuality to the world, inviting bees to wallow drunkenly in their pollen, as butterflies and hummingbirds drink of their sweet nectar, and all share in fertilizing the seeds of the future within the prolific womb of mother nature.

Birds of dizzying variety and plumage will soon frolic here too, repeating once again their own rituals and celebrations, in seeking sustenance for their lives, in finding shelter, and hopefully, a safe haven in which to rear their offspring.

That all this can happen on one tiny patch of earth is evidence enough of the miracle that is life, and proof-positive for me, as to the contemptable tragedy of even a single parking lot of equal size.

What has been squandered by humans, rendered barren and lifeless, is immeasurable. What remains is precious, sensual and sacred, every last piece of it.