O February, how you tease us with a breeze warmer than the one last week, only to slap us back down with great polar puffs and frigid flakes re-hiding the tiny peeks of foolhardy narcissus.
You promise so much, February, but you are shy with green praise; it is March who delivers on the hopeful bets placed in the dark of new years. You are too chummy with January.
You do allow us to hold onto steaming second helpings of soup for one more month at least. I’ll give you that. And you know how to write a page-turner. You are winter’s cliffhanger - alllllmost revealing spring’s plot. But not quite yet. Keep reading you say.
The wood frogs don’t mind your still-shivery stance. They begin their defrost setting before February’s freezer door is fully ajar. I hear them in the cow pond across the way, baiting females with evening tales of warmer puddles in months beyond this one.
The bluebirds are seriously considering making an offer on the compact, cedar-roofed, family home with a view - on the fence post by the walnut tree. The sparrows will outbid them again, but not today. You keep bluebird real estate dreams alive.
You hold the winter views loosely, but with confidence. Spring’s fluffy exuberance won’t steal the perfectly sharp blue mountain ridge from my window on your watch. I get to steep in your sense of distance, future, patience for a little while longer.
You shield spring’s stealthy advance until she can burst into next month’s party - surprise! You show her the front path. A sliver more light. You wake the soil she walks on. You unlock the door. And you pause, before slowly, eventually gesturing, welcome.
This. More please!
So, so good, Anne! This is brilliant!