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