I was reminded of Larkin’s beautiful poem by the buds opening on the trees in the garden and on the hedgerows around here in County Kildare.  This time of year  moves him from a reflection on loss and grief, to thoughts on being born again,  to finally being convinced to begin over again.  The message is like something “almost being said”, so we need to create time to see this: we learn from nature and from this season if we are still enough to listen.

The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

Philip Larkin, The Trees