The forecast was for freezing rain with snowfall on its heels
After five long months of winter, I can’t describe how cruel that feels
So I packed my camera and coffee mug and headed out the door
To wrest that ball from winter’s court and even up the score
In my search for green and growing things, I didn’t look too hard
Before finding lots of ‘tommy’ crocuses in my own front yard
But I’d set my sights on another spot and started up my car
The Toronto Botanical Garden, you see, isn’t really very far
And though the place was showing signs of a winter long and cruel
Iris ‘Katherine Hodgkin’ was looking sweet and icy-cool
And that sunny Danford iris seemed too mellow-yellow for words
But ‘Donald Wyman‘ held all its fruit – what happened to hungry birds?
The ‘Primavera’ witch hazel was living up to her special name
But the hellebores, a downcast lot, hung their pretty heads in shame
All except for Helleborus niger, which looked overjoyed to know
That a “Christmas” rose can look forward to an “Easter” week with snow!
But then I found a gorgeous one with a pretty, upturned face
Yes, the aptly-named ‘Cinnamon Snow’ was spicing up the place
The honey bees stayed in their hives, but the hover flies were flying
And nectaring on the winter heath (though the wind made that feat trying)
The crocuses were a safer bet and a white one offered pollen
(Who knows where her next meal might be once the April snow has fallen?)
And pink chionodoxa – or what the taxonomists have now decreed
Should be considered part of Scilla – fulfilled this one’s dining need
The wind picked up old autumn leaves and blew them from the beds
Uncovering the winter aconites with their sweet, fringed flower-heads
Narcissus ‘Rijnveld’s Early Sensation’ seemed to be a few weeks late
The explosion of colour will come, no doubt , but for now I have to wait
The showers started and I packed things up and headed to my car
Past a drift of Crocus ‘Gipsy Girl’ – a dark-striped springtime star
By the time I arrived at home the wind was blowing up a gale
The temperature was falling fast and the rain fell hard as hail
But the earth was growing green again and it made my spirit sing
That this dark and stormy April day had yielded signs of spring