Maypop Meditation

After a June rainstorm, a magical flower blooms. It is exuberantly layered, an extravagant purple wedding cake on a vine by the side of the road. Petaled, fringed, striped, spotted—hypnotic. Bees feel as I do, transfixed, drawn to this short-lived blossom. This is maypop or purple passionflower, Passiflora incarnata, native to the Southeastern United States, though it looks like the kaleidoscopic creation of an otherworldly jungle.

A passionflower in bloom.
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Frog Pond at Half a Year

A brown frog sits on a stone next to water.
A Southern leopard frog sits under a golden club plant in my pond.

For a while, the tadpoles made themselves invisible. But gradually, as winter turned to spring, they began showing themselves. Tiny legs grew, then lengthened. 

By late spring, they’d metamorphosed into frogs. Now, breathing air and warming their cold-blooded bodies in the sun, the frogs perched atop stones, allowing me to count them: four tadpoles had survived to froghood.

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