Snowdrops

Read an article in The Scotsman yesterday about the Snowdrop garden at House of Dun so, since it's on our doorstep we took Alfie for a walk in the grounds. It's probably a week too early to see them at their best but it was lovely to walk along beside the burn and enjoy the swathes of the little white flowers.

Snowdrops

Do you know what I was, how I lived? You know
what despair is; then
winter should have meaning for you.

I did not expect to survive,
earth suppressing me. I didn't expect
to waken again, to feel
in damp earth my body
able to respond again, remembering
after so long how to open again
in the cold light
of earliest spring--

afraid, yes, but among you again
crying yes risk joy

in the raw wind of the new world.

Louise Gluck