jimsjournal
Moon -- 03/16/04

It's still winter out there.

Bonnie said it was 80°F today (about 27°C) and she was wearing shorts. It was thirty here (minus 1°C) and snowing. It's a bit past ten p.m now, still around thirty and still snowing, with strong winds howling and whistling outside, winds 20 to 30 mph with a "wind advisory" from the weather folks because wind gusts of 50 mph are expected.

Wednesday light snow, windy, little or no accumulation, Wednesday night 50 percent chance of snow; Thursday mostly cloudy with a 50% chance of snow; Friday mostly cloudy, snow likely, 70% chance; Saturday mostly cloudy with 40% chance of rain. Ah hah! Rain, not snow! Sunday only partly cloudy with highs in the mid-40s (around 7 °C). You see, I told you Spring was coming! This weekend it will be Spring!

This is the time of year when everyone wants winter to be over, wants Spring to arrive. But first, winter has to make sure we realize that spring comes in late March, not in early March or even mid-March.
March 14, 2003 -- view from our front porch March 16, 2004 -- the view as I write this

In my very first entry (in 1996) in this journal I mentioned a poem I had written a few years earlier and I said I would post it on-line... and days passed... weeks... months... years all passed... Well, I never have posted any writing here other than these entries. I almost never write poetry; actually, other than getting twelve thousand words into a novel for NaNoWriMo this past November, it's been years since I've done any writing besides this journal and what I do at work. (Okay, so that amounts to a considerable stack of books over the past eight years... hmmm, no wonder I've not written anything else....) However, on this wintery night in mid-March, twelve years after I wrote it, I'm going to post it. (Again, please note that I do not consider myself to be a poet; if you want poetry see John Bailey.)


Moon

Early March, past sunset,
Five tired miles into a Sunday run.
Last week's mud, frozen again, crunching
As I jog through the park
Past two children flying kites in the cold wind.
Above the black leafless trees
A full moon rises in the darkening sky.

Decades ago and miles away,
Worn-out from chasing fireflies around our backyard,
I came to rest on my father's lap,
Leaning back against his muscled arms,
Watching the stars in a deep summer night.
There was a full moon that night, too.
Daddy, I want to go there.
Well, Jimmy boy, he said,
Some day you just might.

My father is gone now,
And I've never been to the moon.
But I pick up my pace
As I pass these twilight kite flyers
On the frozen soccer field,
My kite sailing above us,
Round and white in the deepening night.



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