Here’s a poem I wrote on the eve of spring five years ago. I was heartbroken but hopeful, just out of a long relationship and in a new home. Five years on and I’m a bit bruised and battered after a dreadfully hard eight months. This year the beginning of spring brings only quiet hope and a longing for things to be better. But the sun is shining and the bees are humming and the birds are feasting. And my darling cat is here beside me.

TOMORROW

Even the laundry

with its sleepy smell of crisping linen

is an ode to what is over;

The washing machine’s whirr and thump no longer the busy symphony

of domestic comfort,

but simply what one must do

to get through.

A benign legion of bees rejoice and hum and sup,

drowsy and blissful,

at the blossom tree that has transformed my winter windows

to a delicate riot of pink and tui.

Wings crack and swish, branches swoop and shake.

My cat presses his face, hot and earthy from the sun, to mine.

He chirps, his heart a bird.

It will be spring tomorrow.