Thursday, March 27, 2014

Marching into Spring - poem

~~detail, south flower bed, Couchwood, PL~~ 
 
We are marching. . .  
 
The oom-pah rhythm of a marching
ignites the listeners’ hands and heads and feet
till not a soul is still, and all must stand
 and clap and sing and dance to snare drum’s beat.
 
Not so the spring this year. It lagged behind
in winter’s chill. We moaned like oboes out
of tune and tubists out of step. Snowblind,
we watched from windows-- full of pout and doubt
 
that spring would ever come. On St. Pat’s Day,
or thereabouts, expected, longed-for warm
returned like oboes back in sync, the splay
of tubists feet back to their rhythmed charm.
 
 We clap our hands and rake those last-year’s leaves
 away from rows of daffodils, re-arch
 the trellises that fell in snow. Our peeves
 forgotten.   Fanfares now: it’s finally March!!
~~
 
PL, March, 2014, for SC-PRA contest

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