Spring Speaks to my Soul

For winter's rains and ruins are over,
And all the season of snows and sins;
The days dividing lover and lover,
The light that loses, the night that wins;
And time remembered is grief forgotten,
And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,
And in green underwood and cover
Blossom by blossom the spring begins.

Algernon Charles Swinburne  (1837–1909)
Atalanta in Calydon (1865)

I've never been one for poetry much but shivering under blankets one night in the deep of January, dreaming of warmer days to come, I found this one.  It resonated with me in it's brief simplicity. It's simple truth. 

This winter has been the longest and coldest for so many reasons.  I have longed for spring in such a visceral way it's hard to explain.  I've laid in bed on cold winter nights picturing the green spring growth peaking up through the soil, the blossoms busting through their tight woven combs on the tips of the trees.  

On the occasional warm day we've had recently, I've gotten out in my yard, gloves on, and feverishly pruned-pulled-yanked and hacked at the dead, dried leaves as if vestiges of a past life that I just needed to be rid of.  The incredible satisfaction at looking deep at the root of each plant to find tiny green life waking and reaching for the sun has been so healing.  It's true, time does heal.  I feel it and it looks and smells like Spring. 

". . . And in green underwood and cover
Blossom by blossom the spring begins."