Out
first reading was presented by Sue Wilde and is from The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert:

In every way mosses could seem plain,
dull, modest, even primitive. The simplest weed sprouting from the humblest
city sidewalk appeared infinitely more sophisticated by comparison. But here is
what few people understand, and what Alma came to learn: Moss is inconceivably
strong. Moss eats stone; scarcely anything, in return, eats moss. Moss dines
upon boulders, slowly but devastatingly, in a meal that lasts for centuries. Given
enough time a colony of moss can turn a cliff into gravel, and turn that gravel
into topsoil. Under shelves of exposed limestone,
moss colonies create dripping, living sponges that hold on tight and drink calciferous
water straight from the stone. Over
time, this mix of moss and mineral will itself turn into travertine marble, Within
that hard, creamy-white marble surface, one will forever see veins of blue,
green, and gray-the traces of the antediluvian moss settlements. St.Peter’s
Basilica itself was
built from the stuff,
both created by and stained with the bodies of ancient moss colonies.

Moss grows where nothing else can grow.
It grows on bricks. It grows on tree bark and roofing slate. It grows in the
Arctic Circle and in the balmiest tropics; it also grows on the fur of sloths,
on the backs of snails, on decaying human bones. Moss, Alma learned, is the
first sign of botanic life to reappear  on
land that has been burned or otherwise stripped down to barrenness Moss has the
temerity to begin luring the forest back to life. It is a resurrection engine.
A single clump of mosses can lie dormant and dry for forty years at a stretch,
and then vault back again into life with a mere soaking of water.

The second
reading was presented by Kay Giese; it is the poem “Field Guide” by
Billy Collins from Questions about Angels.
© William Morrow and Company, 1991. 

Field Guide

No one I ask knows the name of the
flower

we pulled the car to the side of the road to pick

and that I point to dangling purple from my lapel.

I
am passing through the needle of spring

in North Carolina, as ignorant of the flowers of the south

as the woman at the barbecue stand who laughs

and the man who gives me a look as he pumps the gas

and
everyone else I ask on the way to the airport

to return to where this purple madness is not seen

blazing against the sober pines and rioting along the

 roadside.

On
the plane, the stewardess is afraid she cannot answer

my question, now insistent with the fear that I will leave

the province of this flower without its sound in my ear.

Then,
as if he were giving me the time of day, a passenger

looks up from his magazine and says wisteria.

Our first reading was by Hugh Nourse (from a recommendation
by Jacqueline Elsner, Oconee Co. librarian):

We Could Wish Them A Longer Stay

Plum,
peach, apple, and pear

Their tenure is bright and brief.

We
could wish them a longer stay,

And the service blooms whiter than snow.

from Bow Down In Jericho, 1950, by Byron Herbert Reece, pp. 107-108

Jackie says:

Here
is a perfect Byron Herbert Reece poem for right now. For
reciting a Reece poem, I am partial to the mountain pronunciation of
“service” as in “sar-vice.”  He did not have a strong
mountain accent, from recordings of his voice. I don’t know how he pronounced
the name of the tree. But certainly the people in Choestoe would have
pronounced it the mountain way!

Our second reading was read by Don Hunter:

March – Signs of Spring 

March
is a wonderful month of hope. Winters back has been broken and signs of spring
are stirring, though it may still feel cold and dark. The old Roman calendar
had only ten months. January and February weren’t part of it; they were just
called lithe dead season.” March was named by the Romans after Mars, the
god of war and also of vegetation, which is fitting as this was the month that
soldiers went to battle and farmers began planting.

The
saying “March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb” refers to the
constellations Leo the Lion and Aries the Ram – both are prominent in the March
sky. Also, the weather is often ferocious in early March and gentler at the end
of the month.

This
is the month to begin looking for signs of new plant life. Go outside and
listen to the chatter of the birds, feel the first warm breezes, smell the damp
earth, and know that here and now, all is right. Be present to the sound of
those birds, that rushing wind, the warming land. 

From The Nature Connection, An Outdoor Workbook for Kids, Families, and
Classrooms by Clare Walker Leslie, a nationally known naturalist, artist
and educator.