Monday's Poetry: "Late February"

by Pa Rock
Poetry Appreciator

The past few days have been beautiful, a most welcome break from cold weather and the ice storm that came through a little more than a week ago, seemingly to punctuate the end the winter.  The ground hog said we were done with winter, and he appears to have been right.

Today's poem, "Late February" by Ted Kooser,  looks at the precise moment when winter scoots out of the way and the world opens itself to spring.

Bring on the warm breezes, and baby chicks, and farmers suddenly appearing in their gardens as unexpected as tulips!


Late February
by Ted Kooser

The first warm day,   

and by mid-afternoon   

the snow is no more   

than a washing

strewn over the yards,

the bedding rolled in knots   

and leaking water,   

the white shirts lying   

under the evergreens.   

Through the heaviest drifts   

rise autumn’s fallen   

bicycles, small carnivals   

of paint and chrome,   

the Octopus

and Tilt-A-Whirl   

beginning to turn

in the sun. Now children,   

stiffened by winter   

and dressed, somehow,   

like old men, mutter   

and bend to the work   

of building dams.

But such a spring is brief;   

by five o’clock

the chill of sundown,   

darkness, the blue TVs   

flashing like storms

in the picture windows,   

the yards gone gray,   

the wet dogs barking   

at nothing. Far off   

across the cornfields

staked for streets and sewers,   

the body of a farmer   

missing since fall

will show up

in his garden tomorrow,   

as unexpected

as a tulip.