Spring?

Spring?

The Poetry of Bad Weather

Someone had propped a skateboard

by the door of the classroom,

to make quick his escape, come the bell.

For it was February in Florida,

the air of instruction thick with tanning butter.

Why, my students wondered,

did the great dead poets all live north of us?

Was there nothing to do all winter there

but pine for better weather?

Had we a window, the class could keep an eye

on the clock and yet watch the wild plum

nod with the absent grace of the young.

We could study the showy scatter of petals.

We could, for want of a better word, call it “snowy.”

The room filled with stillness, flake by flake.

Only the dull roar of air forced to spend its life indoors

could be heard. Not even the songbird

of a cell phone chirped.  Go home,

I wanted to tell the horse on the page.

You know the way, even in snow

gone blue with cold.

– Debora Greger

I love the lines in the poem where the students wonder if all the dead poets have “nothing to do all winter . . . but pine for better weather?”  We’ve had some really nice weather lately. The past couple of days have been stroller pushing, park playing, chaco wearing, jacket forgetting kinds of days. I officially blame the weather for the plethora of half completed drafts I have yet to finish and post. The forecast indicates that winter will be making a comeback, and perhaps the writer in me will come with it. In the meantime, I think I’m due for today’s dose of Vitamin D therapy.

One thought on “Spring?

  1. Even me, the sun hater, has been found this winter face towards the bright sunlight beaming through the windows, soaking up the needed energy.

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