I have a large forsythia bush along the side of my house, under the bay window in the dining room, and another one a few feet away under the kitchen window. The green leaves are appearing, but there are no yellow flowers this year, none at all, except for one odd curved branch, bouncing just above the ground. Six inches of blossoms stand out against the dead leaves on the ground, in conversation with the daffodils straggling nearby.
Most years these two bushes are a fountain of yellow blossoms. They have rarely been pruned and I like them in their natural shape. Other forsythia bushes I see in front yards around town are often clipped into someone else's idea of the right shape for a bush, with no allowances made for branches that want to reach and curve and bend.
I've seen very few forsythia blossoms this spring. Perhaps all these plants could do was stay alive through the cold, cold winter of 2018-19. There was no energy left over to make flowers. (A quick search of "why doesn't my forsythia bloom" confirmed this theory.)
I miss those yellow flowers. The silk ones that decorate the chancel at my church during the Easter season are no substitute. They're lovely, carefully chosen, bundled and tied into artful sprays, integrated into the decor. But they are a performance of Easter joy, not the real thing.
Real joy at Easter?
(I wish I had poetic skills!)
Today I think (and today is only today)
Easter joy is a wild thing.
unkempt, unpruned, exuberant,
but sometimes vanquished,
or hidden, by a hard winter.
Just a few blossoms, close to the earth,
but still dancing in the wind,
are enough to recall the bigger, heavenly thing.
We will all see it someday.
