Spring cleaning

I cannot find fine words to say

to tell you what I did today

I didn’t wash and I didn’t clean

but breathed with the earth,

as if in a dream.

I had to do shopping

but I did not go

Instead I sat here quietly

and watched the garden grow,

heard the lulling hum of bumble bees

after silence in winter’s cold

and marvelled at new daffodils

in shades from white to gold,

saw new growth on the rose trees

which will burst in bloom in June,

heard the the breeze thro’ new grass stems

and the blackbird’s springtime tune.

I touched the petals of blossom flowers

that were finer even than silk,

and gazed in awe at narcissus

with blooms soft white like milk.

The new leaf on the oak tree

had the most lustrous, glorious sheen

and I noticed all around me

a hundred shades of green.

The sun’s ray seemed warm and comforting

far less searing than summer’s heat,

and I lay on the grass and breathed slowly

as if in time with Earth’s heartbeat.

I felt a part of the garden,

I felt a part of it all

from the fences at the roadside

to the edge of the south-facing wall.

There was nothing outside that area

as sweet as what lay within.

I didn’t do any work today,

and I revelled in that sin,

for nothing at all can be finer

or have any greater worth

than lying on the grass on a spring day

and breathing with the earth.