The trumpet, or tabebuia, tree in our front yard, after a winter of bare branches, suddenly burst forth in a blaze of brilliant yellow blooms in time for Easter. Now the fallen blossoms carpet the lawn in a circle around the small tree, and the leaves are popping out. Soon the tabebuia will return to its normal mode, fading into the landscape of green.
This little tree always surprises us. Just when I think it is dead (in part because I have neglected to fertilize or even water it), the branches put on their April show of dazzling yellow, made even more glorious by the afternoon sun. The clusters of flowers on this topical tree are made up of tubular blooms resembling trumpets that appear before the leaves bud.
It is impossible not to notice and be grateful for this annual display of beauty and new life, a reminder that resurrection is a natural phenonmenon, too. I think of all the less spectacular things around me that I should be mindful of, grateful for, and present to: each is an opportunity for prayer.
I think of Hopkins: "The world is charged with the grandeur of God."
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