…and all that—which I was on Monday, with a little look at Spring and All by William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)—the willows along the river are definitely putting out their new, spring green right now.

And that, dear readers, along with the time of year, put me in mind of a Haarth spring in the The Gathering of the Lost: It even has a reference to spring rain, like the Kobayashi Issa haiku. 😀

USA

“Spring came to the River in a flurry of blustering winds and driving rain that turned the local roads into quagmires and hurled the first fragile blossoms to the ground. Two heralds were blown out of the city of Terebanth with the weather and turned east toward Ij, following the great Main Road that had endured since the days of the Old Empire. At any other season a river passage would have been faster, but the combination of contrary winds and spring floods, fed by snowmelt in the headwaters of the Ijir and the Wildenrush, would keep the merchant galleys in port for at least another month. And unlike the adjoining local roads, the Main Road was well paved and drained and would not turn to mud in the spring rain.

UK/AU/NZ

Even so, it took the heralds the best part of a chill and dreary month to complete their journey. The rain continued, steady and unrelenting, and they slept in small wayside inns or camped in the leafless woods. Both heralds were swathed in thick gray cloaks, but they and their horses were equally sodden by the time the first watery sunshine appeared, just before the toll bridge and the great Patrol fort at Farelle.”

~ from © The Gathering of the Lost, The Wall Of Night Book Two – Chapter 1, The Road To Ij