A Good Home, Garden, Nature, Poetry, Spring, Spring Bulbs

Our Lady Spring

My Lady Spring, I must confess

Your absence causes great distress

Why does it take so long for thee

To come back here and stay with me?

Mallard on Wing
Mallard on Wing

The sun shines brightly on the land

But winter makes its own last stand

At least I thought it was the last

Till winter whispered “not so fast!”

Blog Photo -  Blooming rhubarb

The tips of future tulip flowers

Came out expecting springtime showers

Then came a blast of wicked cold

And tulip shrank back in its fold.

Blog Photo - Alium Bloom

Our Lady Spring, we need you so

Oh Lady Spring, where did you go?

Come back, relieve our suffering

And I will make this offering

Spring Garden - Pink Bleeding Heart

No more complaints of rain and fog

No more complaints that we can’t jog

We’ll gladly tolerate the bugs

We’ll stand outside and give them hugs

Spring Garden - Hyacinths

Oh gosh, I just read what I wrote

I take it back, that buggy quote

I hate mosquitoes, really do

And grubs and wasps and deer-flies too

Blog Photo - Daffodil white

But if you come, my Lady Spring

Along with blooms and birds on wing

I’ll try my best to gracious be

About the things that do bug me

Birdhouse by Jean Long
Birdhouse by Jean Long

And I shall greet you in the rain

And sing for you a spring refrain

And take the bad along with good

And walk along the cherry wood

Mature Shrubs in Bloom

Oh, Lady Spring, come back to me

So I can stroll my garden free

Of winter coat and freezing cold

While your great beauty I behold.

Photographs by Hamlin Grange

This poem is dedicated to my friends Mae, Jane and Muriel.

A Good Home, Cafe, Caribbean Sea, Daydreams, Poem, Tropical Holidays, Tropical Vacation, Winter

A Poem for Don in Winter

I once dropped into

A nondescript café

If you can call it that –

Windows facing a grey wasteland

Of ugly buildings

via: publicdomainpictures.net
Via wikipedia.ca

One table over, a man sighed

And complained about the starkness

Of the place in mid-winter

The mounds of dirty snow

And the leaden skies

Photo via: publicdomainpictures.net
Photo via: publicdomainpictures.net

And I replied –

Without missing a beat

As if I’d known him all my life –

“Let us play a game:

Looking through this window

Google Images
Google Images

We will make the sun shine

And change the dirty snow

Into a white sand beach

Look, there it is

Do you see it?

Google Images
Google Images

Those ugly buildings are

The blue waters of the Caribbean

There! You see the white sails of boats?

And to the left, on the beach

A little girl with a ball?”

Image via Tlm magazine
Image via Tlm magazine

And the stranger picked up the story

Without missing a beat

And saw small boats and white sails

Seashells and coconuts

Children in bright swimsuits

Google Images
Google Images

And felt the warm sunshine

On his arms and face

And off he went to join them

His toes pressing into sand

Frolicking on the beach

publicdomainpictures.net
http://www.publicdomainpictures.net

And forgot that he was

In a not-quite dignified café

Facing a cold and barren wasteland

One table over

From a stranger.

With thanks to my publisher, Don Bastian, for his patience and kindness at a tough time in my life.