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A St. Patrick's Day Poem
Greening
By the Ides, we gauge our days
against the rising line of sunslant,
count each icy storm as our last.
Donning green on St. Patrick’s Day,
at altars and on trudges to barns,
we dare to ask for warm blessings
in a world still stubbornly dormant,
until, slow as a son learning his lesson,
the red stem of the thermometer blooms.
Mudcrust dissolves into slush,
frozen creeks give way to flow
and, magically, lacey fiddleheads
unfurl like girls on Easter morning.
From deep in pine-mulched beds,
pink crocus shout, surprise,
and, along the road, redbuds
write their melodies on the clefts
of winter-emptied trees. Though we weep
and wheeze with the season,
we know miracles begin here:
Green follows the gold of pollen.
Barren ground gives way to seeds.
And mushrooms bloom in dew-soaked soil.
As we head to the garden to turn
the soil for another year, thrilled
as new parents, we pucker our lips
to mimic the fiddler’s tune our father whistled
on his way out the back door to dig
each splendid March – his Irish lilt,
the surest sign of Spring.
