I have started watering the ground soil in my greenhouse, and my bedroom windows are arrayed with hopeful flats of dirt and seeds--onions, broccoli, cabbage, lettuce. Planting season has begun, always an optimistic moment. And the doves are singing, and the cars are racing down the road; school vacation is over, and I am home alone in my turret.

Here's a Milly Jourdain poem for the last week of February.

Before the Break of Day

Milly Jourdain

The silence of these hours before the dawn

Is like a world beneath the sea

Waiting in a dim, enchanted light

For morning's new felicity.

At last there comes a distant breathless sound

Of bird songs, growing still more near,

Until the air is full of thrilling notes,

The sweetest music men can hear.

But now the rain has washed it all away,

The silent world beneath the sea,

And all the plants are drinking deep of hope

And love of life's immensity.

Another mixed bag, quality-wise. But the underwater comparison is lovely.

P.S. Check the comments on the Feb. 17 Winter's Tale prompt. Lucy's remark about Mamillius makes me want to cry. She's right about him, I think.