Vernal

Seasons turn

Fits and starts of sunny days

Cold nights bite and snatch our heat

I am impatient

 

Spring makes fools of us all

Temperatures climb above freezing

Runners in shorts, thin shirts

Splashing sandy salted water against calves tensed and flexed

Plastic sunflowers planted in brown crusts of ice

Lolling and nodding under grey skies

 

Four weeks until leaves will burst into electric green shadows

a riotous splash of too bright color

The return of half naked bodies

 

For now we must cling the hope of a crocus nosing out of brown earth

Splash through puddles once trapped in snowbanks

The firm decision that we will bring forth the new season

With bare legged sheer force of will