Blue sky betrays the fallen
daffodils which just yesterday
seemed a sure sign that this
long winter was a wrap.
It’s still possible to walk
our creaking bones through
a chilly gauntlet of birdsong
each morning believing in a promise
of warmer wafting air,
that the ground will unlock
its perfume of worm dirt
to signal mud season
(which, let’s face it, is fun
for pigs and people with
rubber galoshes
but requires more gear).
Our stubborn battle with a
cold house requires another soup-
stained sweater worn at the elbows,
trailing clouds of February’s
cookie crumbs. Our window vista
suggests it might be warmer out there
but April 1 fools us. So we wait,
winter- soft and wondering
at the patience of trees
the persistence of peepers
at what inevitably pops back up
after it falls.
Early Morning Poems 