Hungry For Spring

Last Saturday, the snow-days count was 12 days with measurable snowfall out of 20 days. I had begun to wonder if my internal chronometer had gotten stuck and I was repeating the same day over and over - rather than moving on to the next day in orderly fashion. And our local weather guru says that the groundhog was wrong - no early spring this year (should have sent him my poem that I put on this site early February about Minnesota Fat Cat, our local  groundhog prognosticator).

It's hard to complain about snow when we are still suffering drought conditions. But it is a bit hard on one's psyche. Friends and family alike are craving spring. Some people are having spring fantasies of gardening. At least no one that I know has moved from fantasies into hallucinations!

Around here, cabin fever doesn't usually strike until March. I'm not sure if it was the mild winter last year or one more reaction to the uncertainty in the economy and global threats. The need for something stable in our lives is a universal human condition. Perhaps even for the rest of the inhabitants of our earth.

To soothe my own need for daffodils and sandal-wearing weather, I have been re-reading some of my poetry. Here is a sample.

late March snowstorm

snow-burdened pine branches
bent low, move slowly with wind gusts
their tips trace delicate patterns
on blankets of snow covering over
still frozen earth
like white-haired old women's bodies
weighed down and waiting
for springtime resurrections

Or yearning for those first rains, washing away winter grime and signaling it is time for spring to come forth in her full glory.

listen . . . listen

silence broken by gusting wind
whirling dry leaves rush against walls
naked trees dance every which way

individual raindrops at first hesitant
begin to beat on windows, increase their tattoo
until they merge into a steady downpour

my rain-obscured vision forms
a cocoon around my body
as rain washes away remains of snow

the waiting ground drenched
where buried deep in dark loam
a multitude of yellow daffodils rests