Winter Blossoms

Things are damp out.  And the world is rushing to darkness, readying for a downpour.  The natural world has stilled, bracing for an oncoming wind or peppering rain.  People, however, have not.  While the dawn sky is a riot of shifting soft clouds ablaze with the colors of fire, men and women walking, jogging, running along the shoreline in knots of two or three seem restless.  

At the edge of the earth world, where the sea licks its lips, the shore bluffs are lined with massive clumps of "red rockets," a succulent plant that must endure endless insults from sun and pounding sea, especially now in the dead of winter.

Thumbing their noses at the possibility of absolute obliteration by high tide, they have sent up stalks topped with ochre, just like fiery spears. They are ablaze with an indignant refusal to cow to harsh weather and long dark nights.  Electric purple Pride of Madeira braves winter's bluster, too.  They are vibrant amidst last season's brittle skeletal remnants of old blossoms.     

Funny to think that flowers have courage and stand up in the face of massive wind and drenching sheets of water, but there they are blooming as winter glowers overhead.  On my porch rail, potato vines' dancing blooms are tiny innocents, pure virginal white and delicate.  It's January, you little blossoms.  Hang on.  

Now the rain is falling.  Car wheels are hissing on dark pavement.  I am not a flower or even standing staunchly in sisterhood with the winter blooms outside.  I do sit in admiration, though, and anticipation of a vivid spring.