snowdrops

Snowdrops

Looked up and it was spring and I hadn’t noticed,
busy looking for snow flakes, since someone said
it hadn’t snowed here for fifty years; I climbed up
mountains, and down deep ravines, stayed up late
came across flakes, on the lane, but they turned
out to be petals off my unappreciated almond tree.
The earth usually the colour of dried blood, from
slain soldiers of battle fields long forgotten, is now
covered in intense yellow flowers; in the grass cats
hunt mice; birds, home from their African sojourn,
have nothing to tell me, now busy collecting straw
and tiny twigs for their nests under the roof tiles.
Nature hums of useful, if heedless love; in my quest
for momentary recognition I had nearly missed it all