New life from old

A few years back I lost an older, mostly already dead tree to the wind. I cut up a good bit of the deadfall but didn't get around to removing the whole wreck until winter hit and then it was spring before I could get back at it. By then there were new sprigs sprouting up from it and all around it and so I left it. It wasn't in the way and gradually a little thicket grew up around it. It's in the process of renewing itself once again now.

Eliot called April "the cruelest month," because it bred lilacs out of a dead land. I can't see it that way. It seems to me that April is the bringer of new life, a promise of freshness and regeneration. April here is usually just the near-tail-end of winter, but this year it has been the harbinger month. And nothing cruel about that I can see.