Featured Poem: A Backward Spring by Thomas Hardy

As temperatures remain less than spring-like and rain spritzes, this week's Featured Poem is a selection to represent the very unseasonal climate we're experiencing right now - April 2013 seems rather reminiscent of April 1917, when Thomas Hardy wrote this poem. Perhaps as May approaches this week, we can look forward to a Spring forward in time for our National Conference...

A Backwards Spring

The trees are afraid to put forth buds,
And there is timidity in the grass;
The plots lie gray where gouged by spuds,
And whether next week will pass
Free of sly sour winds is the fret of each bush
Of barberry waiting to bloom.

Yet the snowdrop's face betrays no gloom,
And the primrose pants in its heedless push,
Though the myrtle asks if it's worth the fight
This year with frost and rime
To venture one more time
On delicate leaves and buttons of white
From the selfsame bough as at last year's prime,
And never to ruminate on or remember
What happened to it in mid-December.

Thomas Hardy