08 Mar Revolving into light

Around this time of year, I like to dig out You May Know Them as Sea Urchins, Ma’am, Ray Guy’s 1975 collection of newspaper columns, and re-read the last essay in the book: “This Dear and Fine Country (Spina Sanctus).”

Well, we made it once again, boys! Winter is over.

Oh, but there is still snow on the ground.

So what? It hasn’t got a chance. It is living in jeopardy from day to day. We should pity it because it will soon be ready for the funeral parlour. It is only a matter of another few paltry weeks and we shall see it disappear into brown and foaming brooks; we shall see the meadows burning green and spangled with little piss-a-beds like tiny yellow suns. Winter is over.

Oh, but there is still ice on the water.

So what? The globe is turning and nothing can stop it. We are revolving into light.
The fisherman tars his boat on the beach and is heated by two suns, one in the sky and another reflected from the water, and the ice on the cliff behind him drips away to a poor skeleton.

It is only a matter of a few more paltry weeks and we shall see the steam rising from the ponds andfrom the damp ground behind the plow; we shall see the grandmother sitting out by the doorstep for a few minutes watching the cat; we shall see the small boats a’bustle, piled high with lobster pots in the bow, and the days melting further and further into the night.

Winter is over now.

Praise God and all honour to our forefathers through generations who did
never forsake this dear and fine country.

Ray Guy is a Newfoundland writer. The joke underlying the book title is that sea urchins are sometimes  called whore’s eggs on The Rock. The Latin phrase Spina Sanctus (sanctified by the thorn) was a motto used by George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, an early settler on Newfoundland’s Southern Shore.

The photograph shows the sun setting over Baddeck at 5:54 p.m. today, itself a sign that winter’s goose is cooked.