Poem: "Spring" by Edna Jaques

The smell of burning maple boughs,
White seagulls following after plows,
A killdeer piping in the rain –
We wondered if he’d come again
From the warm southland where he goes
To get away from winter snows.

The starlings came five hundred strong
And swooped down with a burst of song
To feed upon a chickweek patch,
Like happy folk who know the latch
Is ever out for their return;
For them the candles ever burn.

A man works with his pruning shears;
We wonder if he ever hears
The choir of song above his vines
Or the tall wind blowing through the pines,
Where clouds as white as thistledown
Drift over his fields toward the town.

A tractor putts in from the gate
To turn brown furrows clean and straight;
A little girl in overalls
Is playing with a pair of dolls
Under an apple tree nearby,
Which waves its branches at the sky.

There is a feeling in the air
Of new life coming everywhere,
In beast and bird and creeping thing;
Of earth responsive to the spring;
Of joy and beauty gathered here,
And heaven bending very near.