I’ve just come in from feeding the chickadees (and hearing the elk herd crash into the woods, alas) and I was so thrilled to see sunlight on the new garden area. We’re going out to make the final box in an hour or so, once it warms up, but seeing actual sunlight was like a premonition of spring, a harbinger…
And I was reminded of this beautiful poem, “The Sunlight on the Garden”, by Louis MacNeice. Read it aloud — you’ll hear its extraordinary cadence, its hidden rhymes and chimes.
The sunlight on the garden
Hardens and grows cold,
We cannot cage the minute
Within its nets of gold,
When all is told
We cannot beg for pardon.
Our freedom as free lances
Advances towards its end;
The earth compels, upon it
Sonnets and birds descend;
And soon, my friend,
We shall have no time for dances.
The sky was good for flying
Defying the church bells
And every evil iron
Siren and what it tells:
The earth compels,
We are dying, Egypt, dying
And not expecting pardon,
Hardened in heart anew,
But glad to have sat under
Thunder and rain with you,
And grateful too
For sunlight on the garden.
...Theresa Kishkan 
That’s a lovely poem. It amazes me how varied this country is — you’re working on your garden and my poor mum (also an avid gardener) is bemoaning another -38 degree day in Regina. I think I’ll send her this poem as encouragement.
Yes, amazing, isn’t it? Yet there’s a moment when all is equal — sometime in May, when our lilacs are in bloom and so are the ones in Ottawa, Toronto — but Halifax? Not sure…