March by Gail Holst-Warhaft
Maybe age makes me reluctant
to speed the guest who always overstays
but March reminds me I’m a lover
of winter. You can have Palm Beach,
and pretty places old people go to
warm themselves before they die.
Give me this silent, stringent season,
the only feet in the snow ours
or an unseen fox’s, the only birds
that brave the sky, hawk and crow.
How could I have missed this,
not noticed the rough games
crows play with the wind, the way
water curdles under ice
in slowed motion? Why did I huddle
by a fire oblivious to the mottled fire
a low sun lights on the red pine.
Maybe I’ve learned to like austerity
or reached an age when all guests
are parting and I dread to speed them on.
© 2005-2009 Per Contra: The International Journal of the Arts, Literature and Ideas