days of light

They come, the days of light. They come after weeks of difficult darkness, when the world seems to be whirling out of control. Yesterday I spent hours working in the garden, spreading compost over the vegetable beds, digging out kale seedlings to tuck in elsewhere. I’ve been dragging out potted roses from their winter protection under the eaves and transplanting scented geraniums. When I come in, my hands smell of them: lemon, rose, resiny Fair Ellen, a small-leaved one that is sort of rose and mint. Huge bumblebees drift past my shoulders, eager for the flowering rosemary.

Last night we went to Egmont for supper and I lost my heart to a wooden cruiser docked below the Backeddy Pub. There are times (and this is one of them) when I dream of far places. I’ve just been to far places, I know, and part of me didn’t want to come home. Didn’t want to resume my bad habit of following the news. It was easier to walk ancient streets and not feel the urgency to know what was happening everywhere else. Next week we’ll take ourselves away for nearly a week on a freight boat making its calls to remote communities in inlets and on islands of the Inside Passage. My hope is to have all the vegetable beds sorted and ready before we go so I can plant out seedlings from the greenhouse when we return.

In this tumbledown house,
thought and wind move alike.
At the head of this winter harbour
there was always another old passion, another
voice or face to lure into the light.
Now, what’s not come to my open hands,
the weather’s killed
or the old growth eaten long ago.

The strange turns of weather have made some plants thrive and others fade. A huge sage,at least 35 years old, so beautiful in May with its tall purple flowers, and its leaves pungent in squash and apple soup–most of it died after the heavy snow we had in January, though I have rooted cuttings to try again. A pomegranate is leafing up so who knows, maybe next year it will blossom and fruit, to remind me of the gardens of Carmen de la Victoria in Granada where we stayed in mid-March. (A carmen is a traditional house and garden in the Moorish tradition, where the garden is also an orchard; looking out my window there, I saw birds in the pomegranates that had overwintered on the trees, bright oranges and lemons, and quince coming into flower.)

But these are days of light. I’m finally open to them after weeks of wondering how to move into a new season, the news grim, some personal issues keeping me awake at night, and no way to find joy in my daily work.  Days of beauty. In our old abandoned orchard, a cherry tree is blooming; a plum by the cucumber boxes is about to flower, its scent of sandalwood and honey held in each tiny bud.

Note: the lines of poetry are from “Closing Down Kah Shakes Creek”, by Charles Lillard.