It has been a cold grey couple of months, though snowless our way, but as I write there are actually gleams of sun, so I am hoping this one of my own might prove timely and strike a few chords with fellow spring watchers.

Blackthorn Day

A western wind, sudden and soft as May,
Long looked for yet amazing: perfect spring,
The year’s first windflowers, blossom in the wood,
The new air tart with nettle-growth and dung.
A day like hope: how quickly we forget
The soul’s long winter, when the sleet winds blew.
We surface now like dolphins into light.
To wait time out seems all we had to do.

It will not last, of course: we shall awake
To ordinary greyness and the rain.
So be it then: I would not wish a world
Unseasoned by such sweet recurring pain
Nor ask a heaven, that had no escape
From cloudless summers of eternal now
To mortal spring again, and blackthorn hope
For one day only, perfect on the bough.

David Sutton