More Winter Than Spring - March 9 2025

 

More Winter Than Spring

March 9 2025

Spring begins

on a damp March day.

The snow softens

eaves drip

minutes tick away.

Clocks change,

and the hour we gratefully gained

is lost overnight;

as if a cat burglar

had slipped silently in

while we were snugly in bed

in the cool dark.

But in March

the month of false springs and dashed hopes

the season doesn’t change

it equivocates;

thaws can’t be counted on,

black ice trips you up,

and the snow doesn’t stay

except when it does.

It’s also the month of my birth

in another century

in a very different world.

But March is still March

and it’s left its mark on me;

I, too, am mercurial,

prone to dashed hopes,

more winter than spring.

I may have gained or lost an hour,

but either way, time doesn’t stop.

And as the clock ticks on

old age is softening me,

and for once, the thaw may be real.

Like a temperate spring

when the first crocus

pokes up through the snow;

an exclamation mark

of succulent colour

in a borderless field of white.