Thursday, May 17, 2012

Clover

After a lunch indoors at work, I felt the need to escape for 15 minutes of real air and blue skies.  Off toward the river I headed, to take a walk on the levee.  The levee was built after a devastating flood ransacked the town in 1937. 

The levee is a graceful sort of man-made hill, meandering along the south end of the town for a couple of miles.  It rises above the town it protects quietly and without pretense.  It boasts a wide walking path. 

The light breeze and sunshine felt good on my face.  As I walked, I could not help but notice the clover which blanketed the unmowed levee.
The clover, blooming with abandon on the levee, was not your ordinary lawn-variety, runofthemill clover.  No sirree . . . the blooms were enormous, perched above leaves as big as my fist.

In an instant, I was transported back to my childhood neighborhood, where I would sit with my best friend, Janie, weaving clover blooms into chains on sultry summer afternoons. We wore the chains around our necks, around our wrists, and on our heads as we played bride, decked out in old curtain panels.

Isn't it funny how a sight, a taste, or a smell can evoke such strong memories?

So I began to pluck the choicest blooms, tying one to the next, until I had created a quite passable clover chain. Happily, I strode back toward the office, clover treasure in hand. It adorned the edge of my computer monitor for the rest of the day.  It brought a smile to my face each time I looked at it, and by day's end, my tiny cubicle was fragrant with the sweet pungent smell.


Later in the evening after work, I returned to the levee to take some photos of the clover in the glorious late day sun.  I was reluctant to leave the feeling of this day behind.




 







In retrospect, I think I am quite lucky to have escaped the sting of the bees whose space I was clearly invading.

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