This time is year is always kind of odd, with the excitement of the holidays past and yet too many weeks to go before the first thoughts of Spring starting percolating. Still, there’s always time for a couple of brief poems to capture the essence of the new year:

“The shortest day has passed, and whatever nastiness of weather we may look forward to in January and February, at least we notice that the days are getting longer. Minute by minute they lengthen out. It takes some weeks before we become aware of the change. It is imperceptible even as the growth of a child, as you watch it day by day, until the moment comes when with a start of delighted surprise we realize that we can stay out of doors in a
twilight lasting for another quarter of a precious hour.”
– Vita Sackville-West

That’s true, I can already tell the days are starting to get longer. Although the cool, blustery day that followed the passing of our weekend rain storms provided a reminder that around here it is still “Arizona winter”.

“You think I am dead,”
The apple tree said,
“Because I have never a leaf to show-
Because I stoop,
And my branches droop,
And the dull gray mosses over me grow!

But I’m still alive in trunk and shoot;
The buds of next May
I fold away-
But I pity the withered grass at my root.”

“You think I am dead,”
The quick grass said,
“Because I have parted with stem and blade!
But under the ground,
I am safe and sound
With the snow’s thick blanket over me laid.

I’m all alive, and ready to shoot,
Should the spring of the year
Come dancing here-
But I pity the flower without branch or root.”

“You think I am dead,”
A soft voice said,
“Because not a branch or root I own.
I never have died, but close I hide
In a plumy seed that the wind has sown.

Patient I wait through the long winter hours;
You will see me again-
I shall laugh at you then,
Out of the eyes of a hundred flowers.”
– Edith M. Thomas,

Hat tip: egreenway.com