Marching

 Marching

The birds are chattering about nesting

and some tulip-like spikes are pushing up

through icy borders, snirt and snow— but

most know we have a few weeks to go before

April, that relentless tease, upstages March.

Yesterday a few non-natives came to the potluck

coatless, so had quite a cold walk home.  Native 

Vermonters know better, keep their anoraks

at the ready, have added fleece to the category of

old reliable, much better in the laundry than wool.

Changeability & challenge unnerve us oldsters as 

we witness evolving seasonal patterns.  We recall

the old nursery rhyme, The March wind doth blow,

and we shall have snow, and what will poor Robin 

do then, poor thing? As a child, the verse made me sad.

Now I’m restless and hyper-attentive.  We didn’t ever

hear of the polar vortex when I was young.  There were

no videos of tons of polar ice suddenly dropping into 

the sea with a roar new to human ears.  New Northwest

Passage?  There's change in the polar regions-- 

Russia and China have ice cutters, we don’t.  What?    

Is the Hollocene over?  Has the Anthropocene begun

with the U.S. moving toward the scrap heap?

I should care less about that and more

about the mass extinctions. Our bad.

Bye-bye humans? But Simone...

How do we grandparents

bear these thoughts?

—Sef, 3/12/2025