Transformation: The week spring sprang

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Greenfield Park, West Allis, WI

Spring has been particularly fitful this year, one moment teasing with sunshine and warmth, the next plunging back towards winter. I’ve gone out for a walk in the past week, happily warm in a T-shirt only to find myself an hour later wishing I’d brought along a sweatshirt and a jacket!

Blue buttercups, Zillmer Trail, Kettle Moraine State Forest, Northern Unit

I find it essential now and then to pay attention to wildflowers. The cultivated ones are easily seen, often gaudily demanding attention. Seeing wildflowers in the forest requires a kind of mindfulness that is like meditation. It shifts your awareness from larger concerns to something humble on the ground, swaying gently in the breeze.

Greenfield Park, West Allis, WI

In a little over a week the landscape has blossomed. Woodlands that were barren and monochromatic now blush with new life. Here is a selection of photos that highlight the change, along with a few poetic musings about spring and nature.

Whitnall Park Pond, Franklin, WI.

I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order.  ~ John Burroughs

Franklin Savanna State Natural Area, Franklin, WI

Measure your health by your sympathy with morning and spring. If there is no response in you to the awakening of nature -if the prospect of an early morning walk does not banish sleep, if the warble of the first bluebird does not thrill you -know that the morning and spring of your life are past. Thus may you feel your pulse. ~ Henry David Thoreau 

Mangan Woods, Root River Parkway, Franklin, WI

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul. ~John Muir

Boerner Botanical Gardens, Whitnall Park, Hales Corners, WI

When I speak of flowers                   

it is to recall                                                        

that at one time 

we were young.

~William Carlos Williams

Hubbard Park and Milwaukee River Greenway, Shorewood, WI

Spring has returned. The Earth is like a child that knows poems by heart. ~ Reiner Maria Rilke

Trout lilies, McGovern Park, Milwaukee, WI

I want to do what spring does with cherry trees. ~ Pablo Neruda

Kletsch Park, Glendale, WI

The day came when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. ~ Anaïs Nin

Jacobus Park, Wauwatosa, WI

See more spring photos from the wild lands of Milwaukee's parks and natural areas at Flickr.