I don’t know about you, but it’s felt like a long and cold winter, and according to the calendar we’ve still a ways to go; this is only February the 1st, and we’re closer to Christmas than the official start of spring.
But this week I also felt a certain spring in my step, and a sense of the lengthening days; even if it was bloody cold out there, there was also something different in the light. The sun seems to get higher above that row of houses over the back, and the blackbird has returned, and the robin, and slowly, slowly those crocuses and daffodils and hyacinths are poking up through the soil in those pots in the back garden. Wonder when they’ll flower? Those green shoots have been patient for a few weeks now. The lawn is most definitely mud-luscious. Spring is ever-returning (thanks, Uncle Walt).
So, let’s take a stand against the darkness, and though it’s premature write a poem or an invocation or a gratitude that invites a bit of Just-spring to return to our lives. It’s something of a reach, but sometimes stretching is good for our writing.
Here’s a small sample of Just-springy poems (I nixed a few that refer to later months – that seemed to be rubbing it in too much, or tempting fate to bring back winter). Add others or links or your own in the comments below, if you wish.
E.E. Cummings, ‘[in Just- / spring]’
Tony Hoagland, ‘A Color Of The Sky’
Emily Dickinson, ‘A Bird Came Down The Walk’
Walt Whitman, ‘When Lilacs Last In The Dooryard Bloom’d’
William Wordsworth, ‘Lines Written In Early Spring’