Yesterday, while walking in a neighbor's pasture, we stumbled over emerging sprigs of bluebonnet. Bluebonnet: my home state flower. This will be our first bluebonnet spring, together, in Texas in 28 years. Before we set out on the journey that took us far away from all we knew and loved, I never thought much about spring, or bluebonnets. In those 28 years of exile, of Yankee winters and snow blanketed landscapes, the humble blue and cream wildflowers became enshrined in our memories, a colorful icon for all that was home.
(Spring, 2009)
Before Dad died, we paid a visit to his hometown of Ennis, smack dab in the middle of bluebonnet country. We went to the cemetery where his family was buried and stopped to take a picture of the humble rent house he had brought his new bride to in 1946. They didn't live there very long. Grandfather offered him a job in Houston, and they moved into a new house built by my uncle's contractor father-in-law. The same house that welcomed me and my baby sister into the world. The same house my baby sister and I sold after Dad's death 61 years later.
I scanned the sky. Beautiful cloud formations against the deep blue. Cream and blue, the color of bluebonnets.
The rocks at my feet photographed white as the sun set. White like snow. The dead leaves on the drought starved tree shone golden.
A wind stirred as the sun slipped behind the horizon. Just for a moment, a quiet. cool breeze.
Friday night lights.
And all the while, as I waited for the revelation, for the sun to touch down on that brushy rim, a song played in my mind:
"Glorious, my eyes have the seen the glory of the Lord
Glorious, He stands above the rulers of the Earth"
Glorious, glorious
Lord you are glorious!"
Paul Baloche, "Glorious"
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