Coming of Spring

Already a brittle light chills
And hardens the wind-bent trees.
A post away a morepork shrills
In sudden short alarm. Cows on knees

Deep-buried in the grass turn
Ceremoniously their steaming heads
As we walk past. How strangely burn
The daffodils in your arms! So we tread

The long valley home with no word
Spoken, and into deeper night
Where cold air rushes like a bird
Released, into our faces, and the light

Cast by the daffodils illumines
Your brow and eyes so dark
In their anguish, and past the pines
Where the leaping farm-dogs bark.