Spring in Cascadia

Spring is our favorite time of the year, and not just because this is the month of our birthday. This is the season of rebirth, of the new start. Spring is the season of hope. It is the time when gardens start to come alive. Here in Cascadia, our climate is moderate, so our transition of the seasons at this time of year is more gradual: longer days, enough warmth in the soil to cause seeds to sprout, more breaks in our cloudy weather regime. To celebrate Spring in Cascadia, Cascadia Artpost presents four artistamps illustrating flowers from last year's spring garden: Dicentra uniflora (common name: bleeding heart), Helleboras ericsmithii (common name: hellebore), Phlox paniculata (common name: phlox), and Crocus vernus (common name: crocus).

One of our favorite poets of Cascadia, the late William Stafford (1914-1993), more often was inspired by the other three seasons, but here is a poem of his fitting for spring. It is taken from the collection Learning to Live in the World, Earth Poems by William Stafford:

THE DREAM OF NOW

When you wake to the dream of now

from night and its other dream,

you carry day out of the dark

like a flame.

When spring comes north, and flowers

unfold from earth and its even sleep,

you lift summer on with your breath

lest it be lost ever so deep.

Your life you live by the light you find

and follow it on as well as you can,

carrying through darkness wherever you go

your one little fire that will start again.

~ William Stafford, 1991