April Ephemerals

Ephemeral
Noun: Something that lasts for a very short time. Something ephemeral. Specifically, a plant that grows, flowers,
​and dies in a few days.

Psalm 103:15-17
As for mortals, their days are like grass; they flourish like a flower of the field;
for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more.
But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting.

April Ephemerals
My eyes scan the dead
brown forest floor,
searching for early
emerging ephemerals,
joyous sentinals of spring.
Something about these 
fleeting flowers
calls me back each year
to witness their being.

I recite their names
like a seasonal litany
or an annual reunion 
with old friends:
Hepatica
Cut-Leaved Toothwort 
Dutchman's Breeches
Trout Lily
Bloodroot
Virginia Waterleaf
Blue Cohosh
Rue Anemone
Spring Beauty
Trillium
Thanks be to God!

Yes, I see you,
and I see myself.
Our lives, too, are short.
You show us how to live 
with abandon and to
to let our beauty shine,
trusting the Eternal One,
Beginning and Ending,
to provide purpose 
and grounding,
whatever the length
of our days.

- Wendy Janzen