Lilies

Familiar day lilies - those vibrant orange trumpets that look so defiant and sturdy - have made their grand entrance in a large thatch at the bottom of my driveway in New York. Here visiting C in Michigan again I see that there are day lilies here as well.

While I am much more of a weed whacking kinda gal, C glories in her gardens: she has revitalized the landscaping around her old farm house, adding greenery, bushes, flowers and beyond that built rectangular boxes and planted all manner of delightful veggies: potatos, tomatos, green beans, snow peas, cabbage, squash, spinach, basil and rhubarb. Black raspberry vines are interspersed with weeds, tall grass and poison ivy around the perimeter which falls off down a hill into the woods which is slowly being eroded by yet another condo invasion.

The type of lily plentiful in C's garden are Stella d'Oro lillies - they bloom more consistently over a period of time - and keep their crisp yellow/orange bloom longer. She also has tuberous lilies, Stargazer lilies and Asiatic lilies. The lily I am waiting for, however, is my Easter lily.

Until about 2 years ago I took the common name Easter lily at face value (after all, they appear in church every year at Easter)... then I began noticing that my in-terraed 'Easter' lilies bloomed on or around the 4th of July. Barbara clued me in on the fact that the natural bloom of the brilliantly white lily was indeed July in this region. Harrumph.

Then again, how wonderful. The symbol of Resurrection - of freedom, of love, of truth - blooms about the same time that we as a country celebrate our freedoms. Yes, our country has flaws: what country or human institution does not? We can celebrate the good of it, the beauty of it, the striving of it. We can revel in the fragrance of a beautiful flower and all of the hope and promise it represents.

Freedom: freedom from sin, freedom to serve. God bless us and this country. Amen and Amen.