Trillium (Trillium ludoviciana) blooms in Louisiana in late February. One of its common names is “Wakerobin,” in keeping with its role as herald of spring. The trinitarian leaves appear first, low to the ground on sunny morning slopes. Then come the dark reddish-purple trinitarian sepals and petals.

But don’t tarry. To see them, be in the woods as February turns into March. They will disappear without a trace, leaves and all, no later than the first of April.

The shortness of their days in the dappled woodland light does not discourage them. Go back to the same spot next year. Barring catastrophe, they will have begun again.

Every beginning points to an ending. Every ending prefigures a beginning. Khalil Gibran said it another way: Life and death are one.