Eyes on the Ground

Most of the time on my walks around Meeker Park, I keep my head level, or I’m distracted by the clouds that bloom over the mountains and sail east.  But this time of the year, I’m more likely to keep my head down, looking for the first pasqueflowers, those springtime beauties that are more dazzling than anything I’ll see later in summer—carpets of purple lupine or bunches of purple and white columbine—because these first flowers of spring emerge so unexpectedly from the brown detritus of last year’s plants. Right now, they’re the only thing of color—aside from the yellow Oregon holly—in the still drab landscape and more so because their petal-like sepals are almost transparent, so a tiny purple light seems to glow from the brown forest floor.

When I arrived at the cabin on Wednesday, I checked the place in my yard where I usually see the flowers but there was nothing. Yet Thursday morning, when I went to my car, I nearly stepped on one, and when I came out a few hours later, there was another. And a few hours later, a whole phalanx had emerged, some of them still curled up. Around the unfurled ones, I could see the silky hairs that protect the plant from the still cold nights and always possible snow. From the seasonal records I keep, these pasqueflowers are flowering two weeks earlier than last year.

They seemed to pop from the ground, as if the warm sun had finally penetrated the soil and propelled their release from the earth. I thought if I sat there long enough and watched, I could see one actually slither up through the soil. But other things distracted me, so they surfaced when I wasn’t looking, their secret entry into the daylight safe from my prying eyes.

 

Comments

[shoney]

"They seemed to pop from the ground, as if the warm sun had finally penetrated the soil and propelled their release from the earth. I thought if I sat there long enough and watched, I could see one actually slither up through the soil"---it feels like this everywhere I go, this magical spring. Thank you for sharing this, I can imagine you at your cabin almost stepping on this beauty--I remember when you found a pasqueflower when you first saw the cabin, I think you knew then this was the right cabin.

[Erin Block]

"I thought if I sat there long enough and watched, I could see one actually slither up through the soil." I have always wanted the patience to try doing this....but my eyes always get distracted too. This is a beautiful piece, Kathy.

[Sally]

I so wish I had a cabin!!

[Julene Bair]

I love pasque flowers, and I love the words you use to describe them, esp. "phalanx." What a cool word!