SPRING SONG

\Spring creeps in so uncertainly       

An April Fool’s kind of a joke-

Rain and wind and clammy cold

Conspire to give the lie to the old saw

About April showers and May flowers.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the city melts.

Tattletale gray snow banks like soiled bedding

Begin to shrink, leaving clots of detritus.

Winter, that cold old litterbug

Has lost his grip to longer, warmer days.

Springtime comes to the city

As the sheets of ice in the parking lots

Turn into small dirty lakes as the pavement

Slowly begins to appear. Who could guess

Spring would show up clothed in black asphalt?

Is it even worth celebrating? I ask myself.

Is spring all that different? It seems not,

I muse, turning off the furnace, and removing

One layer of clothing, grumbling that spring

Is not as I remember it those many years ago.

Old men always muse to imperfect memory.

Spring is as it was, has always been,

Will ever be. Nothing ever changes, I think.

Winter grips harder and longer with the years

Too many springs have come, not enough are left.

-April 6, 2011

Chip Bergeron