Welcome back to the Garden in Delight blog, happy 2016! According to the Groundhog, spring will have an early arrival this year. We’d best add Almond to the Plant Guide, then, for nothing speaks more delightfully of spring’s hastening than the early, snow white flowering of these Holy Land trees. As promised, enjoy a poem to make it
all the sweeter
by adding plants in rhyme and meter.
Before long I hope to have an alphabet’s worth of botanicals for delighting in God’s Word in the garden, entering into the Lord’s poetic dimension that resounds in the land.
is for almond,
one of Israel’s best trees
yielding fall nut-fruits
from spring’s busy bees.
“a land flowing with milk and honey,”
God called Israel’s home.
Surely almond trees supplied much
to bees’ pollinating roam.
Early spring’s almond orchard
blooms dazzling blush-white,
a breathtaking, fragrance-rapture.
Bee-hold this flourishing sight
like Jeremiah did—
“What do you see?” the Lord asked.
Watch for the Word fulfilled,
the prophet was tasked.
And so in an ancient
Hebrew word-play,
“almond tree” and “watching”
associate the way
we are to live:
Watching for His Word.
Flowers are fleeting,
and things may look absurd,
like a branch with buds and flowers
…and fruit?!
To discern such meanings
one must be astute
to His ways; they’re not as ours,
and His thoughts are higher,
and certainly His Word
accomplishes what He desires.
“Be always on the watch,”
said Jesus, his warnings unfolding.
“See for yourselves,”
he gestured, as if holding
the tabernacle lampstand,
shining light, sweet and bold,
adorned with almond blossoms
and fashioned in gold.
Almond culture is particular;
no late frosts, little rain.
Not many gardeners
have climate and terrain
to produce from these trees—
to the market we go,
where nuts and products abound,
pastries to amaretto.
Now almond milk is trending,
isn’t that funny?
Seems to come back around
to the land of milk and honey!
where the LORD promised
to watch over our life.
Be expectant, anticipating:
the Lord God will give us light.
Find more information about almond at gardenndelight.wpengine.com/plant-guide/almond/
Photo Credits:
© 2015 Shelley S. Cramm All almond blossom photos from an amazing trip to an orchard in Kern County, CA last February
