When society was agrarian “quarter day” meant payday, servants hired, school starts, rent due.

The first such calendar marker happens in February, although it is actually a “cross quarter” day, or the day midway between quarter days. February’s cross quarter day marks the slow return to Spring. In the Church the second of February is Candlemas; among the standing stones Imbolc. The secular society calls it Groundhog Day, but the impulse is the same: to bless the light and look for signs of spring; to honor the lower-case gods of late winter.

Whatever it’s called
Though winter draws to a close
Spring’s never soon enough

When I moved here four years ago, I marked Candlemas by gathering scavenged plants in unseasonal warmth, staging them in my unheated Breezeway. This year, like that one, we’ve had unseasonal warmth, and one of the most snow-free winters since they started keeping records.

It…