We rang in the vernal equinox in my neck of the woods with ice on Tuesday followed by maybe six inches of snow overnight (I didn’t have the heart to measure it). Although it is melting fast, I felt cheated out of the first day of spring. If it had only been on Monday when I worked in shirt sleeves in my garden cleaning up last year’s growth. My rhubarb is ready to leaf out, the daffodils are blooming, the hostas are poking their heads above ground, and the mint is giving up its fragrance. As sure as I know my perennials will continue to emerge and new growth will break out all around me, I was still a bit melancholy over this meteorological turn of events.
Today, I was reading David Young’s translation of the Tang Dynasty poet, Du Fu, and came across the following poem written around 760 AD…
Rain on a Spring Night
Congratulations, rain
you know when to fall
and you know quite well
you belong to spring
coming at night, quiet
walking in the wind
making sure things
get good and wet
the clouds hang dark
over country roads
there’s one light from a boat
coming downriver
in the red morning
everything’s wet
flowers all through Chengdu
heavy and full of rain.
Ah, we have hoped for spring for thousands of years and, as always, it comes back with its rain and flowers!