DAYS

What are days for?
Days are where we live.
They come, they wake us
Time and time over.
They are to be happy in:
Where can we live but days?
Ah, solving that question
Brings the priest and the doctor
In their long coats
Running over the fields.

– Philip Larkin

One of my favorites will do for a spring poem. I don’t have much to say about my garden pictures, so I looked through old posts for verse to accompany them, and it appears that springtime has generally found me too busy to read poetry. It’s happening again.

The last day of November I was soddenly planting out bulbs and annuals in the front yard and wishing things were different; I had not wanted to be planting myself; that’s why I’d hired the new landscaper, to help me. It also seemed too late to be setting out those plants. Well, now I am awfully glad for everything, and the flowers that are proliferating at this point.

In the back, more surprises. For one, I didn’t think the irises I transplanted last fall would bloom yet, but they have lots of buds. And a disappointing surprise is that the daffodils from the package I bought are not as advertised:

One of my already blooming  new perennials is this member of the gooseberry family:

At the moment a cold wind is banging the gate and rain is coming on. I’m wishing I hadn’t arranged for help to clean the fountain today, and glad I took these pictures yesterday and before. By the time the storm passes more things will be blooming, and a new day will come and wake us — a day to be happy in.

Addendum: The fountain helper just called to cancel!