"Spring has returned. The Earth is like a child that knows poems." ~Rainer Maria Rilke

*Images of past springs in The Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.  

Photographs by my mom, Pat Churchman

"Where man sees but withered leaves,
God sees sweet flowers growing."
~Albert Laighton

"And Spring arose on the garden fair,
Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;
And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breast
rose from the dreams of its wintry rest."
~Percy Bysshe Shelley, "The Sensitive Plant"

*Virginia Bluebells in my garden, flowers given to me by my dear grandmother.

"I think that no matter how old or infirm I may become, I will always plant a large garden in the spring.  Who can resist the feelings of hope and joy that one gets from participating in nature's rebirth?"  ~Edward Giobbi

"The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day."
~Robert Frost

*Poppies and iris in the garden.

"April hath put a spirit of youth in everything."  ~William Shakespeare

"Yesterday the twig was brown and bare;
To-day the glint of green is there;
Tomorrow will be leaflets spare;
I know no thing so wondrous fair,
No miracle so strangely rare.
I wonder what will next be there!"
~L.H. Bailey

"If I had my life to live over, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring

 and stay that way later in the fall."  ~Nadine Stair

*Country Lane in the valley.

"Spring in verses,
Verses in spring."
~Violet Gartenlicht

"Now every field is clothed with grass, and every tree with leaves; 

now the woods put forth their blossoms, and the year assumes its gay attire."  ~Virgil

*A country roadside not far from our farm.

"The day the Lord created hope was probably the same day he created Spring."
~Bern Williams

"Spring is when life's alive in everything."
~Christina Rossetti

"The year's at the spring,
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hill-side's dew-pearl'd;
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn;
God's in His heaven--
All's right with the world!"
~Robert Browning

*My parent's yard.

"A little Madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King."
~Emily Dickinson

"Spring unlocks the flowers to paint the laughing soil."
~Bishop Reginald Heber

"I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils."
~William Wordsworth

*Stone wall with daffodils at my parent's home