Spring ~ the last day of February ~ and Billy Collins

It is the last day of February, and the city of Vancouver is blooming. The warmth of the sun, the freshness of the air, gave me pause to think about poems of springtime, especially an early spring, a surprise of sorts, even to those of us on the left coast of Canada.







The poem is Today by Billy Collins, former Poet Laureate of the United States, and it says, in one sentence, all that needs to be said about a day so fine.







If ever there were a spring day so perfect,
so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze

that it made you want to throw

open all the windows in the house

and unlatch the door to the canary's cage,
indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,

a day when the cool brick paths 

and the garden bursting with peonies

seemed so etched in sunlight
that you felt like taking







a hammer to the glass paperweight
on the living room end table,

releasing the inhabitants
from their snow-covered cottage











so they could walk out,
holding hands and squinting










into this larger dome of blue and white,
well, today is just that kind of day.

Photos by Jim Murray and taken on February 28th 

in VanDusen Gardens, Vancouver. 

Copyright 2015.