Arizona Spring, Hope and Waiting

4 petaled golden flower blooms on desert floor

creamy white flowers on green saguaro cactus

Springtime has long been symbolic of new life and new beginnings and here in the desert, it is no different. One of the first wildflowers to push its way through the desert floor is the California poppy, the delicate, golden bloom arriving in full sun in mid-February.

After the arrival of the poppy, there is a mad rush of wildflowers. The pink or orange-cupped globe mallow. The spike of purple larkspur. The slender desert marigold. My camera comes out again and again to document this arrival of color. If the winter has been dry, seeds will sometimes tuck in tight for another year, waiting for a better chance of survival.

While wildflowers may wait an additional year to bloom, there is another desert plant that is a master in waiting.

The saguaro.

Saguaros take such a long time growing - only a couple inches in the first ten years - that they concentrate their next forty or fifty years on getting taller. Only after the saguaro reaches six or more feet, does it put any energy into reproduction.

The saguaro waits.

But then the cactus puts on a show. Dozens of knobby buds appear on the end of each stem. In April and May the buds blossom, with each three-inch, creamy-white flower lasting only 24 hours.

The saguaro blooms after the wildflowers - the chuparosa, the brittlebush and the desert daisy. The saguaro blooms after the trees - the palo verde and the ironwood. And the saguaro blooms after the other cactus - the hedgehog and cholla.

The saguaro waits.

First it waits fifty or more years to produce flowers. Then it waits each year until the rest of the desert blooms.

This spring, as I have waited with the saguaro, I have found myself thinking a lot of my parents.

Perhaps because Mom died at the beginning of Arizona spring about a year ago and Dad died at the end of Arizona spring two years ago.

Perhaps because in one week we will participate in Relay for Life and it is impossible for me to think of this fundraising event for The American Cancer Society without thinking of my parents.

Mom and Dad are tied in my memory to this season- the arrival of the poppy until the blooming of the saguaro.

While the poppy arrives to full desert sun, the saguaro stages the final anthem of springtime in the darkness, attracting bats and other night-time feeders, before crescendoing into the sunlight for the final blooming.

Spring in Arizona always ends with the saguaro's song of hope, hope of life again in the desert.

"Standing sentinel in the forbidding desert wastes,

the saguaro constitutes a grand, green answer to our oldest question,

What are Life's chances against Death?" - Frederick Turner

What are Life's chances against Death? Arizona spring holds the promise of an answer beyond the waiting, to a hope I will one day see.

This. Yeah, this ... I believe.

And you, my friend.  You, standing in full desert sun. You, struggling to breathe in desert darkness.  You, wondering if it is the year to bloom. You ... so, so, so very tired of the waiting.'

Take heart. What you wait for is coming.

Hold onto hope.