Far Worse I Have Known

The day is wet and cold and windy but far worse i have known
In the place where my life's early memories were sown
When the weather temperatures was at zero degrees
And the cold wind was soughing in the naked trees

Old memories as ever are with me today
Of bleak Winter days in a place far away
With brown flood waters babbling loudly in every rill, river and drain
And the old hills cloaked from view in the gray fogs of rain

At a time of year too cold and wet for grass to grow
And weather forecasts of frost, rain, storms, sleet and snow
In the farm yard sheds hungry cattle were bellowing for silage or hay
In the gray of the morning of a wintry day

When the hungry wild birds of Nature had no songs to sing
In the cold depths of Winter ten weeks from the Spring
But even in the coldest and wettest and windiest time of year
Every gray dawn to the Spring brings us near

When the weather temperatures rise above ten degrees
And the nesting birds sing on the leaf budding trees
Hope springs eternal as the wise one does say
And each day brought us nearer to the dawning of May

These things of my past i surely do not miss
I have known of far wetter and colder and windier days than this
But going back the years this does seem long ago
And time that rusts iron has become my foe.