Lay for the Day 25th March

… was the Roman festival of Hilaria, a joyful day to mark the spring equinox.

From the book of Praises:

6. Of Spring Again

When green-white flames spurt from the tips
of saplings glimpsed against the lid
of lead-grey sky by parallel
sunlight raking the avenue

and like the dinted glassy boss
of water where a spring wells up
the prunus shows a cool new surge
of leaf with two or three blossoms

floated up on it like bubbles
before the whole froth surfaces
and all the trees in their own way
test the air with genitally

sticky or bulbous or frilly
outgrowths and irretractile risks.

John Gibbens, from Collected Poems

The Lay Reader: an archive of the poetic calendar