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.