Midwinter spring

OK, not pretty-- but the world isn't all gingerbread and Christmas trees. It's been warm in Seattle, above normal after the big freeze last week. I got outside yesterday in just a light jacket, raking up soggy leaves and checking out the damage. The usual things (geraniums) are history, and the canna stalks frozen down to a slimy mess. I don't know if the cannas will come back, but I do know I can get a big fresh bag of them at Costco next year. These are "before and after" pictures of the exact same garden spot. But you can't let that get you down.

I've been on an rip this week, sawing down some ugly (and not-so-ugly) shrubs, and thinning out beds for a fresh start. Winter housecleaning. I even cut the top off an old pink camellia, which pained me-- but it was choking out a couple of nice matching evergreens along the fence. Camellia flowers are beautiful for about 10 minutes in late winter, but our damp weather turns the blossoms brown, and then they fall on the ground and rot. I feel like I should like them more than I do... Well, too late now; I tend to be impulsive in the garden. Fortunately, the way things grow, my pruning mistakes are soon forgiven.

For all the complaining about weather, many things are good about our climate-- such as long, early springs. In February, when other parts of the country are frozen solid, I'm bringing in yellow forsythia branches and looking at the first daffodils.

Do you ever read poetry? T.S. Eliot's poetry has a reputation for being obscure and frustrating. I think so too. What on earth is he talking about? But I've read The Four Quartets at least fifty times, and something in the words keeps bringing me back, like a puzzle I'll never solve. Here's a few lines that come to mind on these winter/summer kind of days:

Midwinter spring is its own season
Sempiternal though sodden towards sundown,
Suspended in time, between pole and tropic.
When the short day is brightest, with frost and fire,
The brief sun flames the ice, on ponds and ditches,
In windless cold that is the heart's heat, reflecting in a watery mirror
A glare that is blindness in early afternoon.
In the dark time of year
Before melting and freezing the soul's sap quivers.

T.S. Eliot
From The Four Quartets
"Little Gidding"