Today the season of sparrows chirping
In the budding white birch trees
While doves coo to their mates begins

A time for the quickening in things
As the burgeoning sun glows less dimly
At its higher angle of bright repose

A time for less vigorous fires in the hearth
Where colorful oak embers of red and yellow
Once sent outward warmth to chilled bodies

Who can deny the hope of the final white dew
Upon a rusted barbed wire fence in the chilled morn
Or swaths of pale green appearing in the hills

Leggy roses with brand new buds appearing
Tell the infinite tale of the cycle of death
And birth upon the warm and darkened earth

Now in my orchard garden of fading winter
Tiny shoots begin to emerge softly
Among the garrulous and spiteful weeds

Behind my crumbling rock wall hides
The beginnings of new hollyhocks
Waiting for sunnier days to bloom

Resignedly under gray clouded skies
Spring strives ever boldly to lose the
Winter melancholy driven into the earth

I feel the swelling of pendulous breezes
Creeping into new luminous thoughts
Bringing renewed waves of happy anticipation

Winter is leaving and sere leaves of brown
Are being replaced with tiny green buds
And my lighter heart sings hymns of bliss

Soon the weeding and planting begins
And the gardens will begin to blossom
Here is to the fading of the winter