April
By Michael Drury

Sometimes in spring it’s winter
On the north side of my house.
Pussy willow and field mouse forage
Out in coats of gray on the south
where day is longer and sunlight stronger.
The crocuses poke up
green fingers to find out if
the warm air lingers long enough
for blooming. A few brave bees
are zooming over soil almost soft
enough to work. But at the front
blue shadows lurk, and even patches
of snow where the rhododendrons grow
and the seasons reluctantly part.
Life too has its reasons and yields
slowly to a new start,
so that in spring sometimes
it’s winter on the north side of my heart.

1982—my mom clipped this poem out of the newspaper sometime soon after I was born…in March. I didn’t start to get it until about 2008.