Wild Geranium Days

By Jonathan Shipley

Wild Geranium. Photo by Jonathan Shipley.

The flowers are beginning to bloom. The returning birds in their trees now have rivals in coloring the countryside. An oriole sings above wild geraniums. Yellow warblers skitter above golden alexander. A wood thrush voices its forlorn call over columbine.

Cherokee Marsh is not yet a dazzle of blossoms, but it is on its way. Bellworts are ringing their yellow bells. Mayapples hide their blossoms beneath green umbrellas. Shooting stars glitter in the thickets. Daisies dance. These are wild geranium days.

“I didn’t realize until recently that spring is my favorite season,” my daughter tells me as we walk the paths—footfalls near pond and pine, grasses and garlic mustard.

“Winter is too long,” she says. “It’s cold. There’s not enough sun.”

She’s a sensitive, lovely young woman. She’s affected easily by changes of mood and weather, by the vagaries of friendships and dark nights.

She’s also affecting, with her deep heart and ferocious mind, warmly affecting us by the ways she looks at the world, whether at politics or the flowers at our feet.

Mayapple. Photo by Jonathan Shipley.

Cherokee Marsh reveals each season by what is growing, what is dormant, what is dead, and what very much is alive. We walk close together, my daughter and I.

“Summer,” she says, “I thought I liked. I do. It’s great,” she confesses, “but it’s too hot and all the bugs come out.”

She mentions mosquitos. I mention, “but, also, lightning bugs.”

She mentions midges. I mention, “but, also, monarchs.”

I want her to remember, in her black-velvet mind, the positives in life. Our days are hard enough —a daze of confusions and fears—particularly for a teen such as she, so why should we not try to focus on things that make our days good? Pasque flowers and prairie phlox; black-eyed susan and goldenrod. These are reminders that, when we grow, we bloom.

Things make our days good, remember. Like walking the marsh. “Like being together,” I tell her. Like looking toward tomorrow, one day further from the winter past, one day closer to a future-made wild bouquet.