This time of year I hardly know whether to laugh or cry.

The recently magnificent crabapples have drifted their petals to the ground like quiet tears sliding down a cheek. The tulips look worn at the edges and the earlier varieties have collapsed, leaving only the center stems pointing questioningly to the sky.

All the peach blossoms were lost to a stealthy overnight low temperature. Still, apple blossoms are abundant this year. The maples are presenting a massed crop of winged seeds this year — a sign of abundance or a bid for survival in a changing climate?

The asparagus is thrusting high and strong, faster than we can eat it. All that early March and April rain generated abundance. But, just months later, we face fire threat. A second sharp mid-May frost did capricious and conspicuous damage, most shockingly withering the baby leaves of the late-leafing catalpa, both the new little transplants and the giant mother tree.

Will there even be the stunning orchid-like blooms this year? What of the bees that usually set the tree a-buzz among the blossoms?

The roses were nipped after a vigorous start; rhododendrons promise magnificent blossoms. And so it goes. The first early flush of spring is giving way to a more ambivalent mix of bounty and prospect, unbalanced by threat. We are left wondering: What’s next?

Unfortunately the same question hangs over our national government like a storm cloud. Our country’s well-being appeared to be in recovery, even with lingering and exhausting after-effects (something like national long COVID) from the previous administration. We have witnessed conviction of our former president on sexual abuse charges, multiple other ongoing federal and state civil and criminal cases, and additional convictions for seditious conspiracy of participants in the Jan. 6 assault.

Despite all these distressing realities, major legislation was passed to boost job creation and to counteract global warming; employment numbers rose back to pre-COVID levels; inflation eased a little (despite the ongoing war in Ukraine and increasing costs of climate impacts); and American corporations have made tremendous recent investment in industries previously outsourced to other countries leaving us vulnerable.

Now Republicans threaten to halt the once-routine action to raise the debt ceiling to cover current expenditures already approved by Congress. The goal is to force Democrats to renege on basic commitments — to Social Security, to care of veterans, to medical programs, to hungry and needy families across the country. Using weirdly twisted language, Republicans say that raising taxes on grossly wealthy companies such as oil or pharmaceutical corporations, or on the wealthiest 1% who own over 20% of our national wealth, is “socialism.”

The cruelty and meanness of the drive to knock down and keep down our less well-to-do citizens, using inflammatory language labeling people as “un-American” for wanting folks to pay their fair share, seems gratuitous. Apparently sustaining the Trump tax cut that cost the nation trillions of dollars and added substantially to our national debt is more important than caring for each other. Default on the national debt would mean that all of us who rely on Social Security, Medicare, and other federal programs that we have already paid for will face complete disruption of our lives.

Republicans have perfected the art of twisting words and meaning and then using the deliberate misunderstanding to upend decency and common sense. Like a malicious person strewing sharp metal objects on the highway, Republicans then blame the tires for the ensuing wreck.

President Biden’s mistake seems to have been assuming he could bring a tow truck to the scene instead of a full contingent of firefighting and emergency medical teams. He may have to completely revise the situation by invoking the 14th Amendment, which states “the validity of the public debt shall not be questioned.”

What Congress has approved must be paid. Send that message to our representatives and senators, please. Just as importantly, investing in our nation’s people, through fair share taxation and equitable opportunities, supports our future security.

Every year brings the uncertainties of seasonal changes. Some damaging changes, like effects of the climate crisis, are self-inflicted. In the absence of fair play (look up the effect of gerrymandering on Congress and state legislatures), what’s next depends on our efforts now to raise a whole new crop of elected representatives, ones who are not in the service of greed and power.

I won’t be laughing, but I refuse to cry. Time to get my hoe and uproot some weeds.

Judy Wagner lives in Northfield.

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