Thursday, March 28, 2024 -
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Signs of summer

In most cities in the world, you know it is spring or on the way to summertime when the sunshine spills over and you see bicycle riders, en masse, filling the streets.

The thing is, in Denver, you’ve got sunshine spilling over during all four seasons. So other signs become the markers of spring and summer.

Lately though, Denver feels more like rainy Seattle.

Lest you misunderstand, I absolutely adore thunderstorms. As far as I am concerned, bring them on. Denver always has. Come late afternoon and we are treated to dramatic and violent skies, a spectacular sound and light show. Then, just as quickly as it came from nowhere, it vanishes.

Until yesterday, Denver has been so gloomy and rainy this May that it doesn’t feel like Denver.

I hope we turned the corner this week, that the sunshine and flowers are here to stay.

I have noticed that many of the parks’ flower beds had their soil being prepared for the planting of new blooms.

It’s always tricky here, and comes down to the risk of planting, hoping that one more frost won’t come along and ruin everything. (Remember our huge snow storm this past May 10?)

Although spring has felt very tentative around these parts lately, you can’t stop the flowers themselves, which are on their own schedule, pushing up through the ground. Gardens are slowly taking shape and color.

Petals are unfurling like skirts around young girls, or in petal formations resembling dainty teacups.

The air is as fragrant as perfume when you pass the lilac and rosebushes.

Honeybees are buzzing and dancing from flower to flower, drinking sprinkled dew drips and doing their nectar magic.

From regal to wild flowers of every kind, they are starting to show their faces.

Red robins are lining backyard telephone wires, in pairs.

Fuschia rhubarb stalks are glowing at market, snuggled against crisp asparagus tips too.

The ice cream truck is singing its melody, breaking up long days, causing children everywhere to respond “Pavlovially,” sprinting with a dollar in hand.

And this year, through these spring rituals, it keeps raining and raining.

So, let it rain! Keep soaking the world, greening it to a gorgeous emerald.

The flowers, birds and bees seem oblivious.

We shall be as well, getting ready to embrace the warmth of summertime.

Copyright © 2015 by the Intermountain Jewish News



Tehilla Goldberg

IJN columnist | View from Central Park


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