Still & Bare

"When the earth is still and bare, the somber gray-brown bark of the hickory tree trunk can be quite magical. The deep forest-green ivy that cascades over the aged brick wall beside my kitchen door becomes the rarest of gifts.
...
In my wintertime garden no butterflies flutter, no honeybees hum, there are no whimsical Johnny-jump-up faces or graceful summer dahlias. Yet I know each is safely hidden away in its own secret bed, where winter's silence holds the promise of spring's exuberance."

~Emily Jenkins for Victoia Magazine January 1993